Rocky Mountain Tumbler Review Update: 6 Months Later (Blog)
Rocky Mountain Tumbler Review Update
It was almost exactly six months ago that I posted my video review of Rocky Mountain Tumbler. That was in early December, as the 2016 holiday season was in full swing. Indeed, the thumbnail for my video shows me in my coat while sitting in my car outside of a Timber’s bar in Henderson, NV. Now, six months later, as I write this, it is already over 90 degrees before 8am. You can see that video below.
Looking back at how much the weather has changed over six months, I’m also pondering whether or not my initial impressions of the Rocky Mountain Tumbler have changed with six months of use.
I’m certainly no tumbler snob, and yes such a person does exist, at least if the comments on YouTube are to be taken at face value. But when I first picked up the Rocky Mountain Tumbler, I had done a consider amount of homework on the topic by poring over comments on similar tumblers. At the time, most of the attention was on the Yeti vs the Ozark Trail. Yeti is a rather expensive tumbler with a “fan” base that is reviled by pretty much all non-Yeti tumbler snobs. Ozark Trail is the Walmart “version” of the Yeti, and from everything I’ve seen, they are nearly identical, both in appearance and performance.
So where does that leave Rocky Mountain Tumbler? Simply put, whereas Walmart put out its “Yeti,” the As Seen on TV industry has done the same with Rocky Mountain Tumbler. A side-by-side comparison with Ozark Trail yields only minor cosmetic differences. I still have to look at the logo on the tumbler to tell which one I’m using.
Neither the Ozark Trail nor the Rocky Mountain Tumbler have spill-proof lids, despite advertising for the latter which implies a leak-proof lid. I did buy an $8 third-party lid on Amazon that works for both of these, and the Yeti, and offers a nice alternative to the native lids.
So how is it holding up after six months?
As you can see in the video below, I put Rocky Mountain Tumbler and Ozark Trail against the Red Copper Mug in a hot car test, and all of them performed pretty well. In fact, Rocky Mountain Tumbler technically “won” the comparison by having a little more ice left than the others, although I think they all did a pretty good job. I think the reason Rocky Mountain Tumbler beat out the nearly identical Ozark Trail is probably because the latter’s lid doesn’t completely close, which will slowly let cool air out. Rocky Mountain’s lid isn’t spill-proof, but it does close. Getting the third party lid would probably eliminate that difference between the two.
My daughter and I use all three of those tumblers every day. While I prefer the smaller size and capacity of Red Copper Mug (and it’s nifty no-tip feature), if I need a larger tumbler, I grab one of the others interchangeably. After six months of nearly daily use between my daughter and I, there has been no apparent degradation of the tumbler, or the Ozark Trail.
Keep in mind that you’re not supposed to place vacuum tumblers in the dishwasher, as that can potentially compromise the vacuum seal and greatly diminish its insulation properties. Thus, I have only washed these tumblers in the sink with warm soapy water.
In the end, Rocky Mountain Tumbler has held up pretty well over the past six months, and gets used almost every day. It’s hard to justify its $20 price tag over that of the Ozark Trail, however, the same as it’s hard to justify a Yeti over either one of these.
Note that you can still buy Rocky Mountain Tumbler online for about $20 and the Ozark Trail for about $15 online, or about $10 in stores.