How to Get Heinz Ketchup Out of the Bottle (With Video)
As you’d expect from a woman who wrote a whole damn book on making junk food from scratch, our house isn’t rife with much of anything containing high fructose corn syrup.
But there are exceptions to every rule, and as a proud Pittsburgher, I always keep a bottle of Heinz ketchup* in the fridge.
That’s why this past Sunday’s Heinz Super Bowl commercial made me livid. Everyone living within 90 miles of the Three Rivers’ confluence knows how to get Heinz ketchup out of the bottle, and the best way isn’t by thwacking the bottom of the bottle. You hit the 57s!
The commercial was doubly frustrating because it’s impossible to find a glass bottle of Heinz ketchup anywhere but restaurants these days; the company has phased them out of grocery store shelves in favor of the easier-to-squirt squeeze bottles.
Not only is the commercial misleading, it’s probably downright confusing to post-millennial kids, who are growing up without the crucial knowledge of how to extract that sweet, sweet Heinz ketchup from its iconic glass bottle.
That’s why, as an educational service to today’s youth, I present the True Pittsburgh Way to Get Heinz Ketchup Out of the Bottle. Watch the video to see the correct technique for hitting the 57 sweet spot and saving yourself the agony.
Need a recap?
- Don’t smack the flat bottom of the bottle.
- Don’t hit the bottle directly on the side.
- Don’t rap the embossed 57 with your knuckles.
- And for pete’s sake, don’t stick a knife up the bottle’s neck to try and break the seal–that just ends in a ketchupy mess.
Just use the heel of your hand to hit the 57 in an upward motion.
Take it from this Pittsburgher: it works every time, and the laws of physics support us on this one! As Fast Company explains:
“If you apply force to the bottom of a bottle of Heinz, the ketchup closest to where you smacked will absorb most of the force of impact. It will flow freely, but the ketchup that is viscously clogging the neck and mouth of the bottle won’t, leaving you no better off than you were before. The solution is to trigger the shear thinning effect at the top of the bottle, not the bottom.”
Sure, you could go ahead and use the squeeze bottles instead, but at least you can be secure in the knowledge that you can work that glass bottle like nobody’s business. And the next time you see someone struggling to douse their fries, you can step in and tell them how to get Heinz ketchup out of the bottle.
(It’s like when my mom wouldn’t let me get the rad Velcro-closure high-tops I desperately wanted until I knew how to tie an actual pair of shoelaces; you’ve got to know the right way before you can go the lazy way.)
*Seriously, my loyalty to the ketchup runs deep–I wrote a whole ketchup manifesto on the subject.
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Casey Barber
Casey Barber is the owner and founder of Good Food Stories LLC and a visual storyteller whose work often focuses on the intersection of food and culture. She is also the author of the cookbooks Pierogi Love: New Takes on an Old-World Comfort Food and Classic Snacks Made from Scratch: 70 Homemade Versions of Your Favorite Brand-Name Treats, and she couldn’t get anything done without the help of her executive assistant cats, Bixby and Lenny. Her favorite color is obviously orange.
Very funny. As a life long Heinz ketchup lover and a Western Pennsylvanian, I thought everyone in the world knew how to pour a bottle of Heinz. Goes to show you how provincial we are here in Western PA.
So if I’m understanding this correctly, it’s like burping a baby?
By the way, we always did the “just stick a knife in the bottle” trick. But that was Minnesota.
Dude, you know I remain blissfully ignorant about burping babies. I’ll stick to ketchup. :)
Loved the video!!!
ha! This just made all of my girls giggle . . . okay, me too. And the illustrations are the cherry on top! Unfortunately, I haven’t seen a glass bottle like that in a while.
Great video Casey. I thought we all knew how to smack the 57. Apparently Heinz needs a re-education.