How to Make Drinks Cold Fast

You open the fridge to realize there are no cold beers or sodas sitting inside. Or, perhaps you have a dinner party in an hour but the white wine is still room temperature. What now? Reddy Ice has a few tricks for you to get your favorite drinks cold quickly.

Wrap the Drink

You want to enjoy a soda with your sandwich, but the entire six-pack is warm. You could try the best-known and easiest method: wrap soda can or any beverage in a damp cloth or paper towel. Then, place it in a freezer or submerge it in ice. The water on the towel evaporates and pulls the heat away from the drink, allowing it to cool faster.

Add Salt

For a faster fix, grab these three ingredients: ice, salt, and water. In a large bucket or pot, create a mixture that is 50 percent water and 50 percent ice. Add a handful of table salt. Submerge the beverage directly into the mixture to cool your drink in about 15 minutes.

Why the need for salt? The salt causes the ice to melt faster, which in turn makes the water colder quicker. Salt water can be colder than your average water. When the salty ice melts, the temperature doesn’t increase from 0° Fahrenheit to freezing point (32° Fahrenheit) as occurs with regular water. Instead, the melted salty ice cubes retain 0° Fahrenheit and the result is very cold water.

Set up a beverage tub with this concoction before a party to ensure attendees can help themselves to a cold beer or cold glass of wine when they arrive.

If you are really in a hurry, speed up the cooling process by spinning the drink with your hand while it is submerged. This will move the warmer fluid in the center to the outside where it can cool quicker.

Try a Gadget

If you find yourself in a warm drink predicament often—it might be time to invest in a gadget. There are tools that take the above method and make it even easier for you.

SpinChill provides two options for customers: the Spin Chill and the Chill Bit. Spin Chill works by submerging either a can or a plastic bottle into ice water and salt and then spinning the drink quickly. The Spin Chill is a complete unit that spins the drink, while the Chill Bit attaches to your normal power drill to work.

The Chill-O-Matic is a similar device but only works for 12-ounce cans. The benefit of Chill-O-Matic is that it is completely contained and only needs ice to cool drinks. This gadget would be ideal for tailgating or camping since it runs completely on two AA batteries. You won’t be able to cool a bottle of wine, but almost every beverage is available in a can nowadays.

Both gadgets use the spinning action to transfer the heat from the hot beverage to the cold ice quickly. The companies promise that their devices will cool your drink in one minute, so you can make that warm beer bottle cold during a commercial break and be back to the game in no time.

However, you get your drinks cold, make sure to use Reddy Ice. Our premium packaged ice is created to the highest of standards because food is ice. Reddy Ice products are third-party-inspected and certified by the International Packaged Ice Association (IPIA).