My partner and I were given ‘his and hers’ hip flasks engraved with our names for Christmas, and although we were pleased to receive them, I little thought how useful they could be. I regularly get invited out on girl’s nights out and am always happy to go, but the price of drinks in the city centre pubs and night clubs always makes me wince. Recently two of our friends announced they were getting married, and they invited both my partner and me out on the respective stag and hen nights. So, for their first outing, our hip flasks were filled with our choice of spirits, and the evening didn’t cost us anywhere near as much as it could have done. Another advantage of taking a hip flask is that you can control the amount you drink, and be confident in the quality – if it comes out of your hip flask, you know where it came from, and you can’t say that about every drink you are served in some of these dark crowded nightclubs.
Another, unexpected benefit of owning a hip flask came when we were invited away for an overnight stay, and my partner had a bad cold – I put a nip of a proprietary night time cold cure into his hip flask for him to take at bedtime, and he went to sleep as quietly as a baby. I don’t advise mixing cold cures with spirits though, and if you use your hip flask for something like this, be sure to wash it out again thoroughly otherwise the next drink will taste distinctly odd.
When the better weather comes, we are looking forward to camping expeditions, and the old hip flasks will come into their own again, particularly if we have a typical British summer this year. We will take a little something we fancy with us and have a sip while we snuggle down in our cosy tent. His hip flask is a rugged carbon fibre one, so it’s bound to stand up to the rough and tumble of camping life. My hip flask is rather more girly-looking with a pink leatherette cover, so it will be easy to keep it clean.
A hip flask is a useful item to own, and also a great gift for many occasions, and they can make good economic sense – a gin and tonic in a pub can cost anything from £3.50 upwards, and you can get a decent-sized hip flask which will hold a triple for £9 or thereabouts, so you do the maths!
