# Italian Brio Chinotto - soda bottle



## RCO (May 8, 2016)

found this at a yard sale this weekend , though it was interested , guy is sort of an antique dealers and had a few boxes of bottles but nothing really interesting or that old . only wanted a couple bucks for this one . thinking its from 60's or 70's , haven't really seen it around here before . although I know they still sell brio in cans and modern bottles at some pizza places around here , it seems to be popular there although I've never tried it 

Italian Brio Chinotto - bottled under authority of pure springs Canada limited Ottawa Ontario ( agents for Canada and united states ) contents 7 oz


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## Canadacan (May 8, 2016)

A really rare Canadian Brio cone top can showed up on ebay a while back and sold for about ($1880 Cad)- $1454 USD!!!...it had never been noted or documented by any major collectors.

Basically qualifies for a bottle since it was crowned on a bottling line!...lol


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## CanadianBottles (May 9, 2016)

Oh hey now there's an Ottawa ACL that I haven't seen before!  Although it doesn't look too old I think it's quite uncommon since I've never seen even a shard of one show up in Ottawa.  I have an Italian friend so I've tried Brio a few times, I quite like it.  It's not bottled by Pure Spring anymore since they went out of business a while ago, I'm not sure who bottles it here now.  Maybe Coca Cola.

That's quite the can, I'm always wondering why I never see any of those cone top cans around here in Ottawa since they seemed to be used quite a bit by Pure Spring.  I think they must have had one for nearly every flavour they carried.  I've only ever found one cone top can in Ottawa, behind an abandoned motel, and to my disappointment when I cleaned it up it turned out to be an antifreeze can.  I'm not sure if Pure Spring even had a flat top can.  Their cans show surprisingly don't show up very often considering how ubiquitous their bottles are.  I only found my first Pure Spring can the other day, and it was a crushed aluminum can which I didn't keep.  That Brio can sold for an amazing price, really makes me want to go crawling under some porches in Little Italy.  I bet that somewhere out there in Ottawa there's a few of those waiting to be found.


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## RCO (May 9, 2016)

I'm not sure who bottles it , but its only really sold at pizza places I notice . I eat a lot of pizza but haven't tried it when there . thinking the bottle I found must be from 60's or early 70's as there is no French on bottle yet and still only in oz . but not really familiar with this brand or bottle , haven't really been looking for brio bottles .

the price for that can is crazy , its hard to believe is was worth that much , don't think I can recall finding any cone top cans either . do find a lot of various cans here and there . don't see many pure spring cans either ,  don't specifically remember finding any but could of came across one here and there , some of the cans I find are so rusty its hard to even read names on them .


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## Canadacan (May 12, 2016)

Yes Pure had Flat top cans....the ones I have are pull tops and button tops, Gini was another brand that came in a similar bottle as that Brio....also bottled by Pure Spring, I have the can but not the bottle.
That Brio can would have went over $2000 cad if my friend had know about it!


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## RCO (May 12, 2016)

I noticed there is a fill Gini bottle from pure prings on ebay 

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/1950s-VINTAG...260439?hash=item3ac327acd7:g:aRYAAOSwAuNW7sqZ


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## CanadianBottles (May 14, 2016)

Oh when I say flat top I mean the ones that needed a churchkey to punch open.  I know they had the pull top type.

I'm much more familiar with the Gini bottles than the Brio bottles.  I see the Gini bottles around here and there quite regularly.  Found one in the woods one time with a perfect ACL, but sadly the top was knocked off.

Some Googling also turned up something interesting about Brio that I never knew: it's Canadian, and although Chinotto is an Italian drink I'm pretty sure Brio isn't sold in Italy.  It turns out that it started in Ontario in the late fifties.  Which also suggests that no, Pure Spring likely didn't have anything in between the cone top can and the pull tab can.  Which makes me wonder even more why on earth I can't find any cone top cans if they were being used in the late fifties and probably sixties around here.
And it turns out that it's not bottled by Coca-Cola, it's bottled by - of all companies - National Dry, the company that used to bottle Wishing Well.  I had no idea they were still around.  Apparently they bottle Dad's Root Beer as well.


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## Canadacan (May 14, 2016)

Oh yea I know what you mean by flat top...lol... I have around 40-50 of them in various brands  So Brio is Canadian?...never knew that...and if they started in 1959 that explains the extreme rareness of the Brio cone! as cones were being phased out in favor of FT cans. That Brio will show up in a flat top sooner or later....Pure Spring dose come in FT they are just difficult to obtain...here is a really super tough 10oz Cola!.....this can sold for about $130 last year.




My Sampling of Pure Springs stuff is small but here is what I have....the first older Pure Spring Ga pictured is a PT but it also came in a FT



The back of the Gini can...it is a PT , pretty early though as it has the Mira-Can logo on the side...its from about 1968-70


Forgot to show the back of that Brio can!


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## CanadianBottles (May 15, 2016)

130 bucks eh?  Hmm I'm gonna have to take home every flat top can I see from now on, I didn't know we had such desirable flat top cans in Ottawa.  Every time I clean up a flat top can it's ended up being some sort of soda (except once when I got a beer) but I've never gotten anything local.  Grocery store brands seem to be most common.  Seems they kept using flat tops much longer than everyone else.  I haven't seen any nice flat tops in a while though, I don't remember passing up any that would clean up too well.  One possibility though is that Pure Spring didn't sell soda in cans in Ottawa.  It might have shipped the cans to more remote towns where it was difficult to retrieve bottles from.  That could explain their scarcity compared to the bottles, which are absolutely everywhere.  I'll have to check out some small town dumps one of these days.  There's a ghost town near Ottawa with a few absolutely massive fifties surface dumps of the kind perfect for cans (entirely above the soil), and I remember finding a fair number of flat top Pepsi cans in them, so maybe there are some Pure Spring cans out there too.  I didn't poke around the largest one too much at the time I was out there because it required some fairly dangerous clambering around, and I kept seeing wasps flying by.  If there was a wasp nest in that dump and I accidentally disturbed it I would have been royally screwed because I would have no way to quickly escape.


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## Canadacan (May 15, 2016)

Wasp's are the worst!...they are so aggressive! Be worth it to check out for sure.....if you can hit a 1960's section and look for the 12oz soda cans. I have had limited success cleaning up rusty cans but I'm getting better at it


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