Need To Chill Your Drink Glass Fast? Try Cracking Your Ice

There's nothing worse than a refreshing drink that loses its cool before you've had time to finish it. The best way to prevent your beverage from becoming tepid too quickly is to serve it in a chilled glass, but this typically takes some planning. Fortunately, there's a shortcut for rapidly lowering the temperature of your glassware.

The go-to technique for chilling a glass quickly is to fill it with ice and water. It should only take a couple of minutes for your vessel to get sufficiently cold, and you can use this time to prepare your ingredients or to mix your drink if you're making a cocktail. However, if you want to expedite things, the trick is to crack your ice cubes first. Breaking your ice into smaller chunks increases the total surface area of ice, creating a larger area for heat transfer and allowing the water to cool faster.

There are plenty of ways to crush ice quickly without making a mess. The easiest method is to blitz your ice cubes in a blender or food processor, but you can also do it by hand. Simply fill a large, sturdy plastic bag with ice cubes and give it a few good whacks with a rolling pin. If you plan on cracking ice frequently, it might even be worth investing in a Lewis bag. A common feature in the pro bartender's toolkit, these are canvas sacks designed specifically for making crushed ice with the provided wooden mallet.

Although filling a glass with ice water is the fastest way to cool it, it's not the only option. If you've got extra prep time, you can pop your glassware in the freezer for 30 minutes to an hour to bring the temperature down.

However, there are some things to remember before you attempt this method. It's important to be aware that not all glassware is freezer-safe, and the extremely low temperatures may cause the glass to become brittle and crack. If it's made from tempered glass it should be fine but don't take unnecessary risks. You should also know that large changes in temperature can cause glassware to break, even if it's tempered, so never put a hot glass in the freezer. Only put empty glasses in the freezer — if there's liquid inside, it will expand as it freezes which can lead to a messy eruption of broken glass.

Another technique for cooling multiple glasses at once is to submerge them in a large container — such as a cooler — filled with ice water. Making that much crushed ice is more effort than it's worth so you can stick with cubes, but salt can also help speed up the process. Adding salt to the ice water will cool it down faster because it lowers the freezing point of the liquid. Just remember to rinse each glass before use to get rid of excess salt that might affect your drink's flavor.