Stanley has created a rugged 2 gallon insulated water jug. It has 3-inches of thick insulation, and a leak-proof gasketed lid with clamp locks to keep your drink from spilling during transport. You can tell the water jug is airtight, because if you don’t open the air valve at the top, you’ll only get a dribble of water out of the spigot.
The spigot is completely recessed, meaning that none of it sticks out past the edge of the jug – so it’s virtually impossible to bump or damage the spigot.We’ve had the jug sliding around in the back of the van with camping and picnic gear without any problems.
It has a large ‘button’ to open the spigot that makes it easy to do with only one hand, while holding your cup in the other. There is a slight delay, where after you release the spigot, there is a dribble that continues for a second or so as the large spout drains.
This water jug is so well insulated that even adding cooled fridge water without ice, it stayed cold for hours during a summer afternoon picnic.
With only a few downsides, this is our top recommendation for a medium sized insulated water jug. The 4 latches are strong and easy to use, but since there are 4 of them, opening and closing them takes a little bit of time. ideally this jug would be square, because it’s hard to pack camping chairs and coolers around it so it feels like you’re wasting some space in the trunk. (Yeti’s option is square, but it also costs almost 10 times as much!)
