Breast Milk Storage Bags
"Here rots the guy who gave the cocktail world breast milk bags."
I hope it's a long time before that ends up on my gravestone, but when it does, I'll have a rigor mortised smile of pride. No piece of bartending equipment, no recipe book, no mind-blowing cocktail, nothing has had a greater, sustained impact on my drink making than breast milk bags. It was quite disheartening.
I've had syrups go bad no matter how I tried to preserve them. Canned, alcoholed, refrigerated. As a home bar tender, no matter how much I drank or served, I wasted too much syrup and too much time making more syrups.
I've also made or purchased an abundance of pureé and juices, with the intention of using them as drink ingredients. A quarter ounce here, an ounce there… and a lot more poured down the sink.
Too much waste, too much refrigerator space, never on hand. Not being able to properly and reliable store ingredients limited my recipe options. I couldn't make unique flavor combinations that I thought up, like panch phoron syrup for Old Fashioneds, or a salty syrup for Sazeracs. The world of Tiki was practically off limits and written off.
One day I ended up at Farmers Bakers Fishers with a friend after work. We didn't expect the tiki menu awaiting us. Tiki wasn't my thing, but we went all in on it, much to the entertainment of the older ladies visiting from out of town. Zombies, Scorpions, Mai Tais, Swizzles, oh dang was it a good time. A new theater of drinks was opened up for me!
The next day my head was still spinning, mainly from trying to tackle the impediment I had experienced before: how to preserve syrups. I couldn’t get deep into the tiki at home without figuring out the syrup and juice storage problem.
I knew the problem wasn't a result of bad technique. I reviewed my production notes from the late aughts. The ratios weren't the problem, as both my simple and rich syrups experienced the same problem of cloudy growths. I sterilized my jars, I tried unboiled and boiled syrups, I used overproof alcohol, I had refrigerated before and after opening. I hadn't tried two things: freezing and storing in smaller quantities.
So I immediately set to it. I made some syrup, let it cool, then transferred the sweet liquid to quart size Ziploc freezer bags. I sealed them up and one in my refrigerator and the rest in the freezer.
As needed, I would measure out my syrup for a drink, and thaw out additional bags when I needed more syrup.
Over the following months I collected a few observations:
- Freezing was far more reliable at preserving the syrup than canning, refrigerating, or adding alcohol.
- Ziploc freezer bags, even though they are thicker, are prone to leaking at the seams and corners. These left a sticky mess in the freezer, refrigerator, and elsewhere.
- These same bags also dripped from the seal. Minor, but annoying.
- The width of the bag did not seem ideal, as it required two hands to pour.
- I had filled each bag with 8 ounces of syrup, a mistake from many years ago which I repeated - as a home bartender, it is hard to consume that much syrup before it starts to go cloudy.
- Syrup that has been frozen then thawed will still go bad at what seems to be the same rate.
- Syrup can be thawed and refrozen without impacting the texture or flavor.
- The six inch opening of the Ziploc bag was excessing - I only needed an opening half the size for pouring and filling. This could reduce the risk of leaking as well as making the bag easier to use with one hand.
For the most part, this was a very successful experiment, helping me to preserve syrups for longer and reduce my waste.I tried storing juice the same way and received similar results.
I then began thinking of improvements, most of which involved container size, quality, and organization. The critical point came when I determined that 6 ounces was the ideal size container for me and my ability to use the syrup in a timely manner. With this size in mind I began looking at small, snack pouch resealable bags, but these seemed flimsier and prone to leaking than the larger freezer quality bags.
That's when I had the epiphany. Or maybe it's because I saw an old, forgotten 6 oz bag in my freezer, leftover from our last kid. It was a breast milk storage bag, with thicker plastic which hadn't leaked in something 3 years, and contents that looked totally fine. It even had measurements on the side, and a legible date penned on it!
So I started asking around the neighborhood for both reviews of breast milk storage bags and unused bags that weren't needed anymore. I ended up with two different types: Medela and Lansinoh.
Breast milk storage bags are a little different than other bags - they are just better made and a better size. They may still leak. Over the 2+ years I have been a breast milk storage bag guy, I have had 3 bags leak. One of these was a new bag, the other two had been reused many. I stopped keeping track of which bags were reused, so these bags could have been reused between 1 and 6+ times, and transported around the neighborhood, and on road and camping trips. My Ziploc bags had a far more substantial rate of leaks.
All breast milk storage bags are about the same height/width. I find them very easy to pour from and to reseal. Each time I reseal, I squeeze the air out through an unsealed corner until a little syrup comes out behind the air. I then finish the seal and rinse the bag with hot water. I dislike sticky stuff and this solves that problem. After the rinse, the bag goes back in the refrigerator or freezer.
Thawing is even easier. If I am in a hurry, I put the bag in my 28 oz mixing tin, then add hot water. I can also leave it on the counter, or a metal diffusing plate that's on the stove (no heat!). After a few minutes, it’s ready to use.
What to look for in breast milk storage bags
- Size: 6 ounces is perfect, but if it is a syrup you expect to use less frequently, you can fill it partially.
- Build quality: Some bags I’ve inspected are flimsy. While breast milk storage bags are designed for single use, they are also designed to be frozen and transported. Having an infant’s milk leak out is more consequential than other contents might be. Most manufacturers appear to take this into account.
- Volume measurements: These are helpful when initially filling the bags.
- Self-standing vs flat-laying. Self-standing is very handy for when you’re initially filling the bags, as the bottom puffs out and keeps everything stable enough. The trade off is that they cannot be frozen flat, which would help in efficient storage and in thawing.
- Seal quality: I prefer a seal that feels firm, well connected, and with two rows of teeth for added protection. Some seals feel less than adequate, which I anticipate would become susceptible to not staying sealed after repeated use.
- Opening: A wider opening helps when filling and when pouring into a jigger.
My recommendation
I’ve been using 
I haven’t found a flat-laying breast milk storage bag with a similar build quality, but I would like to try some one day.
I use these 
Perhaps you are wondering why I left this as my last equipment recommendation, especially if I think it'll make the biggest impact. This one is furthest on the list simply because everything else builds your foundation. With mixing tins, better ice, garnish picks, all that other stuff, you can make any type of drink. You can find the style you like, and you can get good at it. The breast milk bags, those will store your rocket fuel.
Maybe this is my hill to die on, but I urge you to buy breast milk storage bags. You'll appreciate it.