The Fayetteville Observer:
A year ago at Topsail Beach, Julia Sherron had a Good Idea. Watching her two sons drink from cans insulated with foam coozies, she wondered why there wasn’t a similar product for the wine glass she was holding.
“I had my wine glass, and the glass was just dripping,” said Sherron. “I said, I wish I had a coozie for my wine glass and they said, ‘Well, maybe you can do that.’ ”
Sherron did. She called it the Woozie.
The couple did some Internet research to make sure no one had already come up with the idea, then got a copyright for the name “Woozie.” They came up with a design and found a company to produce the product.
The wine glass sleeves are made from insulating Neoprene. They can be washed, folded and reused and feature a drawstring that can be tightened around the glass.
The product recently got nationwide attention when it was featured on NBC’s “Today” show. Co-hosts Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb talked about the Woozie during a segment devoted to interesting new products.
The exposure translated to 37,000 hits on the product’s Web site, the day the segment aired.
“It has been very, very crazy,” Sherron said in a telephone interview last week.
Photo by Fayetteville Observer.