Well, I’m still trying to get that insulated sports bottle down pat.  I’ve been putting boiling hot water in it about ten minutes before I’m going to put my hot drink in it.  I was trying to put hot chocolate in it, but that just wasn’t working.  The directions on the hot chocolate say to use hot, not boiling, water in it.  If I do that the hot chocolate in the sports bottle is not kept hot for very long at all!  So I’ve switched to hot apple cider or some version of a sugar free flavored drink mix and actually let it boil and then pour the hot water out of the sports bottle and pour the hot drink in.

Then I put the bottle inside one of those foam “can cozy” things for extra insulation.   I don’t even try to drink it for about an hour because it really IS too hot then – but it keeps my hands warm!  After about an hour it is still pretty hot – a good “drinking temperature.”  An hour after that, forget it, it is room temperature.  But that’s OK because I like the apple cider and/or fruity drink hot or cold.  So I’ve managed to make it “tolerable” but I would not recommend it to my friends to buy one - it just doesn’t work as well as I had hoped.