This entry is the sister to yesterday’s entry on our fancy plant mister. We found these vintage glass apothecary bottles and immediately bought some for shop liquids. We keep our backup supply of 50/50 water/alcohol potion in it.
The bottles are 7” tall and hold 250ml. The best part is that the bottle’s opening and its stopper are ground glass. So opening and closing the lid is a sensory pleasure (look, I know I’m weird).
The bottles are a dark brown glass. Ours came with an old pharmacy label on it that was covered in handwriting. Our bottle held Akutol, a first aid spray.
These bottles are gorgeous things that you don’t see much anymore.
OK, enough whimsy.
— Christopher Schwarz
To read previous entries in the gift guide, click here.
When I grew up in Argentina my parents befriended an apothecary who gave them some green bottles with gold labels I can only describe as art nouveau. When my brother and I closed their house down I took them off the mantle. One was for licor de digitalis. The other says licor de Labarraqué, which I read was a chlorine based antiseptic invented by Antoine de Labaraqué who was an apothecary in the French army in Mexico during the Napoleonic wars. It was apparently quite successful in treating gangrene and other infections. Too bad Garfield’s surgeons never used it.
The licor they hold now is less medicinal and more recreational.
I don’t know if gift suggestions are open but I thought of a thing I find useful in the shop, a digital hygrometer/thermometer. I have a ThermoPro 50. $10.99 at the Bezos Bookstore. It lets you know when to put on a sweater and when to oil the tools.
The link in the post is for The Best Brushes not any apothecary bottles there.
Yup. That is where I bought them
They were there yesterday morning, I would assume they have been Schwarzed..
I was take it or leave it until I saw the stoppers. I get it even though I’ve never had the pleasure.
When I read about the ground glass stopper this morning I had an extremely vivid tactile memory of having used one. I could feel it in my fingers. But I couldn’t for the life of me remember where or when or why. I was hoping it would pop into my head today but so far no luck. It could easily have been 30-40 years ago.
It’s an experience that sticks with you. My parents had a bottle with a ground glass stopper that I would play with as a kid.
I guess in chemistry class on school? That’s where I used them last.
I used a lot of ground glass stoppers in my chemistry career. They are a thing of tactile beauty.
I don’t understand: is the seal glass against glass? Is it air tight, so volatile contents won’t evaporate?
I am not an expert on this topic. But the contents do not evaporate in our bottle.
Can’t speak for Chris’s bottle specifically, but my wife received a blown glass perfume bottle with glass stopper. It that case the stopper and bottle where lapped together to create a perfect fit and seal. (Artist said it was the most time consuming step of creating the piece.)
This retired chemist suggests googling “amber bottle with ground glass stopper” if you are looking for a functional bottle at a reasonable price. They are sold on Amazon and elsewhere in a range of sizes/prices. They are not as cool as the apothecary bottles Chris and others have scored, but they are functionally identical.
Also, the ground-glass stopper doesn’t completely prevent evaporation, but it is very, very slow.
I have 4 liter-size acid bottles (labware you can open/close one-handed) inherited from my brother. He got them from my mother’s employer a couple decades ago). I finally have a place to put them to use.
Serious question. Outside of an adult beverage, do you have a shop use for 50:50 EtOH:H2O?
Yes. We use it to soften end grain to make it easier to pare, chop and plane.