Wine condoms now a million-dollar business

An entrepreneurial mother and son duo are laughing all the way to the bank as their quirky ‘wine condom’ business has amassed over a million dollars in sales.

Founded in 2014 off the back of a successful Kickstarter campaign by entrepreneur Mitch Strahan and his 51-year-old mother Laura Bartlett, the pair describe their novel product as “the ultimate protection for wine lovers”.

Aimed at drinkers looking to reseal their wine, each disposable latex “condom”, developed by a rubber company specialising in food, can be used on any bottle.

The idea for the product came about after Bartlett came home from a neighbour’s house one night with a bottle of wine sealed with clingfilm and rubber bands.

Spotting the strange seal, Strahan joked that it looked like a wine condom. A few months later he decided to make his own and cash in on the novelty factor.

The pair raised $7,500 from Kickstarter in 2014, which they used to launch the tongue-in-cheek brand that runs with the tagline: ‘Screw the cork, use a condom’.

To get their dream off the ground, the pair needed additional capital, so single mother Bartlett sold her house and moved into an apartment in order to fund it.

The condoms have proved so popular that they have been bought in large quantities by savvy wine lovers and sold on for upwards of $100 a six-pack.

The pair claim the rubber condoms are 99.9% effective in preventing unplanned spillage.

Sold in $15 packs of six, the portable stoppers provide “on-the-go protection”, and, unlike actual condoms, can be used more than once.

For similarly wacky wine ideas, see our round-up of the top 10 pointless wine accessories.