Champagne and cider bottles: reusable for storing oil

Champagne and cider bottles: suitable for reuse with oil or food-grade liquids

Reusing an empty champagne or cider bottle to store oil or other food-grade liquids is possible, but the container only works if the closure is sorted out. That was the core of a discussion on a prepping forum: an apparently obvious idea —not throwing the bottle away— that ended up drifting into caps, food-grade liquids, fuels and jokes. The glass, in principle, holds up; what fails is the closure.

Can you reuse a champagne bottle to store oil or food-grade liquids?

It can work as a container. One comment points directly to olive oil and any food-grade liquid as the natural destination for the bottle. Against the unsupported idea that the glass would have expired, what is under discussion is the closure, not the container's material. One response settled the matter with irony, claiming these bottles come programmed to self-destruct once the contents are finished.

Metal crown caps, the homebrewers' trick

One user says they have seen these bottles reused by homebrewers: instead of a cork, they fitted a metal crown cap, the same kind that seals any beer bottle.

Some extend the idea to glass jars with screw lids, provided there is room to store them. And one specific caution: not all bottles that once held bubbles are equal. A criterion circulating in the discussion holds that champagne and cider bottles work, while other varieties are ruled out without further explanation.

Petrol, urine and other uses best not imitated

Here things get out of hand. Petrol comes up as a possible content, along with all kinds of notions —storing urine in plastic bottles, for instance— that respond more to humour than to any household advice. Storing fuel in glass is not a sensible idea: any failure of the closure turns the container into a hazard.

Some replies also cross a different line and suggest using the bottle as a Molotov cocktail, with a dismissive remark towards Spanish Civil Guard officers that deserves no more space here. The bottle's domestic usefulness does not depend on that. Another notion took the analogy back to ancient Egypt, comparing the bottle to a canopic jar.

In the end, the calculation nobody has made is the one that matters: how long the contents stay in good condition with an improvised closure. The glass survives everything. What goes inside, not necessarily.