With its old-fashioned proportions looking like they come straight from the top shelf of a medieval apothecary and its thick walls that seem almost to be carved from stone, it's one of the most popular souvenirs to take home after a trip to the Latvian capital and is frequently repurposed into a candle holder.
However, this unique vessel poses a unique question: where should one put one's empty balzams bottle? No rude answers, please.
Never afraid to tackle the tricky questions is Latvian Television's 'Studio 4' show, which somehow managed to acquire an empty bottle in an attempt to find out if it was possible to recycle.
People collared in the street by Studio 4's intrepid reporter were mainly at a loss when asked what to do with an empty balzams bottle. One man did suggest giving the cork to a fisherman – presumably for use as a float – though in all probability most fishermen would prefer the cork to be still attached to a full bottle of balzams.
The conclusion of the show, once the hangover had subsided, was that you can't hand over the pretty bottle of what it called the well-known 'village bribe drink' anywhere, not even in the recycling bin for glass waste, because it is made of a completely different material – clay.
As the director of SIA "Eco Baltia vide" Andris Ziemelis explained, the only thing common to a clay bottle and a glass bottle is the name "bottle", but they are two completely different materials, therefore we throw glass bottles into glass containers, but clay bottles are destined for general waste containers.
"Clay bottles are a product for which, unfortunately, we have not found a way to recycle, and also the amount of material as such – we have not come across, let's say, serious amounts of such material. Therefore, the only recommendation would be to put it in household waste containers," advised Ziemelis.
Clearly inspired by the subject matter, as Studio 4's report progressed it became more and more creative, even entering the realms of stop-motion animation, of which not nearly enough is seen in consumer investigations. Balzam bottles can be seen climbing a flight of steps, vanishing outside the factory from whence they came and ultimately hovering around a waste container, perhaps pondering their unfortunate destiny.
Therefore unless you need even more candlesticks, or an improvised rolling pin, or an emergency blunt object, balzams bottles seem destined for the landfill. Latvijas Balzams, the company which manufactures the bottles and the product inside them did not give an answer to the program as to why these iconic bottles cannot be collected, cleaned and reused, which would on the face of it seem like a sensible and sustainable solution.
