Up until recently, I was a lifelong city apartment dweller. Every kitchen I had was tiny and, over the years, I had learned every trick in the book to make the most of the little countertop and storage space that was available. I didn’t yet have a dish drying rack. I hung my pots and pans. The few small appliances I deemed worthy enough to own were relegated to a kitchen cart that squeezed into a nook between the heat and a garbage bin. The shelves all had risers, hooks, or some other form of a Pinterest-recommended organization tool. Everything had a place — until I had a baby.
Friends with kids had warned that their stuff would get everywhere. As a first-time parent, I naively thought they meant clothing and toys, so I was fully prepared for onesies and stuffed animals to pile up in his nursery and even the living room. What I was not prepared for was all the items required to feed him: bottles, pump parts, brushes to clean those bottles and pump parts, and eventually a whole assortment of plates, utensils, bibs, sippy cups, and food storage trays. They got their own dedicated drawer and cabinet space, but mainly sat out on the kitchen counter because we used them so frequently.
When it came time to get rid of things that our baby outgrew, we became ruthless purgers. General advice was to hang onto everything (“In case you have a second!”), but we happily packed bags of hand-me-downs for friends with younger kids. The one exception to that has been the OXO bottle rack that’s been with us from day one.
Purchased after our initial rounds of baby stuff research, the drying rack had earned the “space-saving” title in nearly every best-of list and came with glowing reviews on Amazon. (It currently has 4.9 stars from more than 14,500 raters.) I thought we’d get rid of it once he outgrew the bottle phase, but that has yet to happen and he’s about to enter kindergarten. Instead, it has become the default drying rack for all of our drinking vessels.
While we do now have a standalone dish drying rack that comes with cup holders, I still prefer using the OXO when it comes to drying our drinking glasses, travel mugs, water bottles… you get the idea. For starters, it’s surprisingly sturdy for something that’s made entirely out of plastic. I’ve entrusted it to hold everything from heavy ceramic mugs to delicate stemless wine glasses. It has yet to tip over, even with my giant 35-ounce BruMate tumbler.
The angled pegs not only allow any excess water to drip out — apparently, they slant at a very precise 48 degrees — but are small enough to let air in for efficient drying. And unlike with the metal prongs on my dish rack, there’s no worry of any scratching (or worse) on the interior. Additionally, there are removable trays on the top and bottom to hold straws, lids, and any other parts that need to be detached and cleaned.
True to its name, the drying rack’s vertical profile is indeed space-saving, but the nine pegs are more than enough to hold the various drinking vessels my family of three goes through in a day. It’s tall, but not so tall that it can’t clear the space underneath a kitchen cabinet, plus the rack has a flat back that can sit flush against the wall. The best part is it’s dishwasher safe — I regularly machine wash the trays and have even tossed the entire rack in with no issue.
While it’s technically part of the OXO Tot collection, the bottle drying rack comes in a surprisingly palatable, non-kid color scheme. The white and gray design fits seamlessly into most kitchens without screaming “baby product” and explains why it’s caught the attention of so many guests. More than once, a child-free friend has walked into my kitchen in search of a snack or beverage, only to stop and exclaim that they need something like this for drying their growing collection of reusable water bottles. Fellow parents, of course, laugh and say that they’ve done the same thing. Because if there’s one group who knows what it’s like to wash and dry a whole lot of bottles, it’s parents — and we’ve found the perfect tool for doing so.
Patty Lee is a writer, editor, home baker and ecommerce kitchen specialist based in New York.
