Ingrid, the LDS pointer is interesting--thanks!

BIllvan, I've had not-so-great results with Platypus bottles. They're not so bad against impact but they don't handle abrasion very well. They spring small leaks after a while. I think I need hard containers. I sometimes use the car to move heavy stuff around like xerox machines, which can sometimes slide around and bang into the bottles and which have sharp corners, you get the picture. (Yeah, banging around isn't too great for the machines either).

The Scepter (BQ/Actiongear) bottles do look interesting. When I phoned up the vendor with some questions, though, they were pretty clueless. Does anyone here actually have any of those bottles? My main concern is how securely all the caps (fill cap, pouring cap, and air vent) stay shut. My main gripe with the thin Reliance jugs is that the air vent just has a friction plug that can fall out easily. I'm encouraged by the Scepter jugs claiming to be stackable--that means they're supposed to be ok to use lying flat. Using the Reliance jugs that way is asking for trouble.

I've tried PTFE bottles (like coke bottles) and I always seem to lose some water to evaporation over a several month period, which means the bottles aren't really sealed. I haven't had any real spills yet though. So my current strategy is just buy bottled water in 0.5 or 0.7 liter six-packs. They are handy for drinking and the six-pack means I have 3 or 4 liters per bundle in the car, so maybe 3 packs total, instead of a dozen separate bottles scattered all over. Maybe I can find a Rubbermaid container of the appropriate size and shape to put loose bottles in sometime, as someone on the other board suggested.

But steel food cans are really close to the perfect solution. They're leakproof, near-indestructable, relatively cheap, can be made sterile inside, and can be thawed in a fire. The one thing they lack is re-useability, but so do those foil pouches and blocks. Maybe some vendor will read this and do something about the omission.