This might be just me, but… don't you just hate drinking wine out of something other than a wine glass? We enjoy our wines, we're by no means any sort of experts on them, but we drink them fairly regularly at home. So far the times we've had wine on this trip have been few and far between, but even so, a question has risen: how to drink this elegantly? We have two cups with us, foldable plastic ones that we use while brushing our teeth. Any liquids drunk from those taste like toothpaste. Some guesthouses provide glasses or cups in the rooms but wine really needs a wine glass. The bowl like shape of it adds to the experience and to the flavor, it preserves some of the fragrances and allows you to smell your drink as well as taste it. It doesn't really have to be glass either, it's the shape that counts for the most part. We have plastic ones at home that we use on picnics and such, but even those weigh some and are pretty impractical on the road.

So, what to do?

The question was how to do this elegantly. The following may not answer that, but it's cheap and easy to make and it works surprisingly well. To enjoy a glass of wine on the go from something that looks and feels a little like a plastic wine glass, follow these steps:

1. Find two suitable plastic bottles. For the picture I had 1.5 liter water bottles, look for ones with a somewhat rounded top and with some lines or such to use as a guide while cutting.

2. Empty the bottles and save one cap, the seal also.

3. Cut the top of the first bottle off at a suitable height, this is the main part of your glass. It's easiest if the bottle has some grooves or something to follow, or you can cut along the top or the bottom of the label. Make it straight and with as little sharp edges as possible. Preferably make a starting hole a little lower first and use scissors to do the cutting.

4. Turn the top of the bottle upside down with the cap closed. If you're running out of time, patience or hand-eye-coordination, you can call it quits and start drinking, it works just fine. If you don't want to hold it in your hands all the time though, you can make a foot for it too.

5. Making the foot: take the second bottle and decapitate it from the bottom of the neck. I used the saw on my Swiss army knife, this part of the plastic is a little harder. Then mark and cut about an inch lower around the bottle. You end up with a cone that you can slide over the mouth of the first bottle with the cap removed. Once capped again, the foot should hold securely in place by its own. I keep two of these parts in my backpack for later use since they take very little room and are a little harder to make than the top parts.

And there you have it, another somewhat useless piece of information for most, but for some this might mean the difference between enjoying a bottle of wine and just drinking it.

Here's hoping…

Cheers!