About Thermos
Thermos traces back to 1904, when the German firm Burger & Aschenbrenner built the first commercially produced vacuum flask and named it after the Greek word for heat, therme. The American Thermos Bottle Company was incorporated in Portland, Maine in 1907, and in 1978 Thermos engineered the world's first stainless steel high-vacuum insulated bottle -- the technology that underpins its drinkware to this day. Thermos LLC is now headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois, and has been part of Japan's Nippon Sanso (Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation) since 1989.
The current lineup spans insulated beverage bottles, food jars, mugs and tumblers, water bottles, coolers, and lunch and infant products, most built around the brand's ThermaX double-wall vacuum insulation. Testing the Stainless King Travel Mug for Brew Gazette, our team found that legacy vacuum engineering carried through into a genuinely well-insulated, comfortable-to-hold handled mug -- the traditional handled thermos form factor from the company that helped establish the category over a century ago.
Brand website: thermos.com
What Thermos makes
Thermos's range runs wider than the products we review. The lines we know best from our own testing are marked with a star:
Stainless King travel mugs
double-wall vacuum-insulated handled travel mugs -- our featured pick — featured on Brew Gazette
ThermaCafe vacuum bottles
insulated beverage bottles for hot and cold drinks
Insulated food jars
vacuum-insulated jars for keeping meals hot or cold on the go
Water bottles
everyday hydration bottles in stainless steel and plastic
Coolers & jugs
insulated coolers and beverage jugs for outdoor use
Lunch & kids' products
insulated lunch bags and kids' bottles and containers
Why we recognized Thermos
The Brew Gazette Top Brand recognition isn't paid for and can't be applied for. We award it to the brands whose products consistently stand out in our hands-on category reviews. Thermos earned it on the strength of the products below, evaluated the same way every product on this site is: bought, brewed with daily, and judged on what lands in the cup.
Thermos products we rated highly
THERMOS Stainless King Travel Mug with Handle 16 oz
This is the classic handled-thermos form factor from the brand that helped establish the category, and it delivers on the core promise: owners consistently report coffee staying hot for most of the day. The ThermaX double-wall vacuum insulation is genuinely strong, and the wide, sturdy handle makes it comfortable and secure to hold, a real advantage over slim handle-less tumblers. The locking lid opens with one hand and closes to a seal, and the stainless construction feels built to last in the way legacy Thermos products are known for. In our testing it holds hot coffee for 5+ hours and still fits a standard cup holder despite the handle, backed by more than 12,000 owner reviews at a 4.5 average.
Read the 10 Best Travel Coffee Mugs of 2026 guide →What earned Thermos the recognition
- More than a century of vacuum-insulation engineering behind the design, tracing to the 1904 invention of the commercial vacuum flask and the 1978 creation of the first stainless steel high-vacuum insulated bottle.
- The ThermaX double-wall vacuum insulation held up in our own testing, keeping coffee hot for 5+ hours in the Stainless King mug.
- A sturdy, wide handle that stood out in our side-by-side testing against slim handle-less tumblers, while the mug still fits a standard car cup holder.
- A deep, independently verified review base: more than 12,000 owner reviews at a 4.5 average on the Stainless King Travel Mug.
- A name synonymous with the vacuum flask category itself, still engineering the same core insulation technology it pioneered over 100 years ago.