The Titanium Bot from Vargo is both a water bottle and a pot for your cooking needs. If you want to save a little weight while camping, you can use the Bot to carry your water, and then flip the lid over, put it on your stove, and boil water for a hot meal. Try that with your plastic water bottle. Or the pot that came with your stove. They can do one or the other, but not both.
It’s a pretty simple idea, and I’m not really sure why I haven’t seen one before. Yes, there is a bit of a compromise, but when it comes to going light, it works well. The Bot weighs 4.7 ounces, or 133 grams, and holds up to 34 American ounces, which is a metric liter. It is all titanium, with the exception of the heat-resistant O-ring that keeps your water from spilling out. Fill it up, thread the lid on, and it’s pretty much leak-proof. When it’s time to cook, just take the lid off and turn it over. The shape of the top of the lid lets it fit snug, but not too snug, so your water boils a little faster. That’s all there is to it. Vargo even put stamped some graduations into it, so you can measure your water. For an extra $10, you can get the Bot cozy, which weighs just about nothing, yet helps to insulate a bit. With it, your water stays cold a little longer, food stays warm longer, and you don’t burn your hands.
We used the Titanium Bot for drinking, cooking, and to tote water from the well spigot at our camp site to the table we cooked at. The large, coarse threads do take a bit more care than smooth plastic when it comes to the lid, but that only took a short time to adjust to. When out for a hike, it fit in the side pocket of our backpacks, as it’s only about a half inch larger in diameter than popular 32 ounce water bottles. That may not seem like much, but wide and low is better when it’s on your stove.
To be sure, the Titanium Bot is not for everyone. While it should not impart any flavor to your water, the wide mouth can be a little odd to drink from. If you have a generic stove, or even a homemade tuna can stove, it should work great. But if your stove came with a pot that has a flux ring on the bottom, you will have to give up faster boil times (and less fuel use) in exchange for lower weight (it’s shown with the stove we had handy during photos, but we used it with a white gas stove too). And if you like to store your stove inside the pot, well, that sort of defeats the purpose here. But if you can use it for the dual purposes it’s designed for, you can save a bit of weight, And its just cool, like all things titanium. At $99, it won’t fit every budget, but keep in mind that it will last just about forever.
In addition to providing the Titanium Bot plus the cozy, Vargo also sent us their Titanium Pot Lifter. At under an ounce (0.8 to be exact), you are not likely to find one lighter or stronger. Simple to use with one hand, it gripped very well and helped to prevent burns. We ended up replacing the steel one that came with one of our cook sets, as it’s so much lighter. Just another great product from Vargooutdoors.com
– Brian