What are pour spouts?
A pour spout is a gadget you attach to a bottle to assist in pouring a fixed amount of liquid. Ordinarily, pour spouts look like metallic tubing that runs through a threaded rubber stopper. In certain models (especially liquor bottle pour spouts), a bulb opposite the plug helps measure precise shots.
Why use pour spouts?
In the bar industry, pour spouts are pretty much mandatory for dispensing exact measures of liquor. Bartenders are happy because it makes their job easier, customers are glad because it makes it less likely that they are being conned, and managers are pleased because pour spouts minimize accidental spills, over-filling, and other wastage.
In the food industry, pour spouts for items like light creams, syrups, and oils, aid pourers to control how much condiment they dole out to consumers with each helping. For example, a waiter can dispense a precise quantity onto a salad without worrying about drenching the meal in a deluge of olive oil.
Who should use a pour spout?
Anyone from a professional chef to a cooking fan to an ordinary householder with a taste for culinary chic will benefit from owning and using pour spouts.
The main difference between liquor and food pour spouts
Liquor pour spouts tend to open up directly to the liquid, with or without caps, or flaps. In business settings, liquor bottles do not sit on shelves long enough for this feature to matter much. If a bottle of whisky will be empty by the end of the week, losing whisky to evaporation or spoilage would be a small, irrelevant risk.
On the other hand, a bottle of olive oil might last in a kitchen cabinet for months. Left open to the air, the effect on the bottle’s contents could be anything from an unsightly change in color to a drop in taste or total waste due to spoilage. For this reason, food-related pour spouts often have complex designs for keeping contents airtight.
Liquor spouts also seldom have to worry about insect infestation. Besides sugary liqueurs and sweet drinks like flavored schnapps, hard liquor doesn’t often win the attention of fruit flies and other pests. Unfortunately, other kinds of pour spouts cannot afford to be as carefree about insects because food particles easily attract flies.
The best kind of pour spout
If users don’t mind constantly fixing and removing them from bottles after every use, there’s little difference between various spouts, but otherwise, the easiest way to use a spout is to fix it once and leave it in place until the bottle runs out. However, when leaving a spout on a bottle, you must ensure it seals its contents and protects it from the air. Therefore, the best pour spouts are airtight, with caps, flaps, and other devices (like plungers). When left on the bottle, these spouts protect their containers’ contents for lengthy periods.
