1.7 min. read
Faithful readers will know I am an absolutist about one thing: Using the freshest whole or freshly ground spices available. And grind my own whenever possible. But Club House brand – the doyenne of Canadian spice racks – has come up with a better spice bottle…
Club House has kept up with the times in other ways – including a recent shout out to home cooks to embrace its new flavours and flavouring products. But one thing has remained the unchanged for the past 50 years: the brand’s trade-mark ‘pedestal’ bottle. It’s made, relat-ively expensively, of glass, a material that is impervious to outside influences – especially oxygen, which is the lead-ing cause of death of all bottled herbs and spices.
But the Achilles’ heel of the glass spice bottle has always been a less than ade-quate closure. The cap itself is sturdy, and threads down securely. But the seal between the cap and the bottle neck has always been… the weak link. And the more times you open the bottle and screw the cap back down as tight as you can… The more fragile it gets.
Finally!
Club House has unveiled a new cap sealing system (pictured, left) that is claimed to be much more robust than the previous cardboard-based one.
Dubbed ‘Flavoursealed Technology’, it introduces a new airtight seal beneath the cap that completely blocks out humidity and air.
Bravo!
But that’s not all!
Club House has also twigged to another eternal verity of Western kitchen craft: Spice bottles are almost always stored in racks or shallow drawers with their caps foremost. But the labels – on the sides of the bottles – are not visible.
Kudos to Club House for introducing new bottle caps bearing the identity of the contents and their freshest-before date, based on bottling day.
In company with the new freshness seal, this could just be the major advance in spice retailing that Club House claims it is!
My take
Good on you, Club House! For addressing one of the main reasons your overpriced products in the tiny bottles have been a bane on aggressive, involved home cooks for over 100 years!
But there’s still no better alternative for the occasional cook who doesn’t want to lay out big money on large amounts of flavouring assets.
If you still use bottled herbs and spices, take a tip from the pros: gently toast your herbs and spices – either in a dry pan or in neutral-flavoured cooking oil – before adding them to any recipe. You’ll unlock the flavours and aromas that are in there, and amplify their effects!
~ Maggie J.