Gear Review – Reliance Beverage Buddy 15ltr

Reliance Beverage Buddy

Gear review of the Reliance beverage buddy 15ltr heavy duty water container – is it any good?

Reliance outdoors is a US company that makes some interesting overland gear, not specifically for ‘overland’ but think base camp storage solutions and field facilities and you’ll be on the right track.

Our water storage solution when we first began overlanding was some 1.5ltr bottles which spent the night in the freezer [thawed out by midday in the Spanish heat] and a big 8ltr bottle from the supermarket which, wasn’t ideal as it looked like it would burst as soon as you looked at it.

Originally we purchased a RidgeMonkey 15ltr water container, the cap did not screw on correctly and it leaked, a battle ensued for a refund from the Spanish online store which pretty much wrote off the purchase of the brand for us as they are hard to find in Spain anyway.

Then we found the Reliance Beverage Buddy at Ferrehogar who’s dealing with the transaction was great, two days later it arrived and promptly swilled out and filled up. We’ve been using the beverage buddy for three months now and it performs exactly as it should, a heavy duty water container that fits well in the back of the Shogun.

Specs:

• Length – 11 inches [28cm]
• Height – 13.8 inches [35cm]
• Width – 9.8 inches [25cm]
• Weight – 1.54lbs [700gr]
• Capacity – 4gallon [15ltr]
• 10cm wide mouth lid

One aspect of a water container that was important to us was a wide mouth, the heat of the Spanish summer can be extreme so having a container that you can put ice into is a must, with a 10cm wide mouth we pack the container with ice and not worry too much about warm water half way through the trip.

Overall we recommend the Reliance Beverage Buddy, it’s strong, has the inverted tap inside the lid, wide opening and comes in a range of sizes. To date we have not had any issues with it and it is in use pretty much every weekend.