5 Things We Bet You Didn't Know About Koozies

To honor the release of our first product, we did some researching into Koozies.

You know what a koozie is, right?

Keeps your beer cold. Duh.

But koozies actually have an interesting history filled with nuggets we bet you knew nothing about.

1. Koozies are old. Like. Really old.

The name "Koozies" was originally a trademark of the Texas company Radio Cap Corporation, which registered the trademark in 1980. RCC let the registration lapse in 2001, but that means koozies are older than us, and, damn, that's old.

2. Koozies go by more than 15 different names.

And old saying says that you can tell how important something is to a group of people by how many names it has.

For example, the eskimos have 50 different names for 'snow.'

Then I guess koozies are to rednecks what snow is to eskimos because rednecks have at least 15 different names for koozies, including:

beer hugger
beer huggie
cozy
coosie
coolie
coldy-holdy
can cooler
bawdle
beer sleeve
bottle jacket

However, we have to tip our hat to our Australian brothers for the best name: "stubby holder"

3. Koozies have been the source of controversy for over a decade

Yup. Two companies are at war over the lovable stubby holders.

Norwood has been in a dispute, on-and-off over several years in the 2000s, over the Koozie trademark status with an online retail business called Kustom Koozies.

Norwood asserts that names such as beer hugger, can cooler, and huggie do not infringe its trademark, but that koozie, coozie, coolie, and cozy do.

Kustom Koozies asserted in 2005 that the trademark had become generic.

In the years since, Norwood and Kustom Koozies came to a licensing agreement over the use of the trademark, but by 2009 they were in dispute again, as Kustom Koozies (unsuccessfully) attempted to cancel the trademark licensing agreement in response to Norwood instructing it to make certain changes to its website, one of which was that "Koozie" should be set out in all-capital letters as "KOOZIE," and another being that a (R) symbol be used to identify genuine Norwood KOOZIES.

It's like the damn Hatfields and McCoys all over again.

4. Koozies keep your beer cold in multiple ways

Sure, everyone knows that koozies keep your beer cold, but they actually work in two different ways.

Beer koozies effectively insulate a beverage from heat via both conduction and external infrared sources (for example: a hand, warm air, or strong sunlight). Using a beer koozie can reduce the rate a drink warms in the sun by up to 50%.

As an aside, we had to look up conduction cause we couldn't remember the difference between conduction and convection from high school.

Conduction is the transfer of energy through matter from particle to particle. It is the transfer and distribution of heat energy from atom to atom within a substance. For example, a spoon in a cup of hot soup becomes warmer because the heat from the soup is conducted along the spoon.

5. All koozies are not created equal

The beer koozie has evolved in both material and style.

The materials of which the beer koozie has been made include plain foam, neoprene, closed cell foam, and EVA foam.

Some companies create koozies for 40 oz. bottles; others adjust to fit the wide variety of sizes of beverage container.

The material used to construct the koozie is designed to insulate the enclosed beverage from external sources of radiant and conducted heat (i.e. heat from a hand/or the sun).

Beer koozie used SBR neoprene for 12-ounce bottles.

The SBR neoprene cost is more lower to save cost for companies.

So there you have it.

Five things you didn't know about koozies.

Now go get yourself one!