I wanted to review some shoulder holsters for bottles. They are one from Etsy, Chicken Trampier, and two from Alan Stokes.
The Etsy one is under an ounce but started failing at about a thousand miles on trail and eventually weighed more because I used duct tape to hold it together. Pictured with a .7 liter bottle.
The CT one weighs 1.7 ounces and uses a non-stretch mesh and with postage cost me $35. Pictured with a one liter smart water bottle in it.
The heavier of the two by Alan uses a stretch mesh and attaches to your pack in an identical fashion to the other three.
The lighter one by Alan and his newer design (pictured with a .7 liter bottle) has nice color accents and was 1.8 ounces. I really like it as it seems really stout and unlikely to fail. Cost is not yet determined.
All of them are easy to use with the three heavier ones being stiffer and easy to put a bottle in with one hand. The lighter one currently has no functional attachment points for my pack.
I never had trouble with bottles falling from the holster/sleeves but the cord at the top can be adjusted to solve that problem.
I can’t reach bottles in my backpack’s side pockets and bottles there tend to fall out on me. A shoulder holster lets me reach the bottle while I’m hiking and helps balance weight.
I’ve used the bison clip https://www.supplycache.com/products/bottle-bandit-carabiner-cip-bison but the carabiners always failed on me and the bottles I carried would bounce. It was almost perfect.
But that *almost* had a big gap. REI quit carrying them.
My wife used this one and it never failed on her. https://www.etsy.com/listing/1099227829/read-item-description-justins-ul-125g. It is about half an ounce.
More thoughts later but this is my preliminary review.