How Rapid Drink Chillers Work

There's no doubt the invention of the refrigerator has changed the way we store and preserve food and drinks, making it easier for us to keep things like milk, juice and fruits and vegetables for extended periods of time. But that's just what a refrigerator is for -- storing food and drinks. It's not a refrigerator's job to cool goods in a speedy fashion. Most cooling units are big and have a lot of storage space, which means fluids don't cool quickly. It's just like air conditioning a room: the larger the room, the longer it'll take to lower the temperature.

So the first goal of a rapid drink chiller is to significantly reduce the amount of space. That's why, conveniently, they're fairly compact -- about the size of a toaster oven. At the same time, of course, they also need to provide a useful cooling system. A rapid drink chiller, specifically the most popular and readily available Cooper Cooler One Minute Drink Chiller, invented by Greg Liobl, uses cool water jets, ice and rotating rollers to do this. So how does it all come together?

Whether you want to warm up a cup of coffee or cool down a drink, either way you're relying on the transfer of thermal energy to do the job. In any hot material, the molecules are moving much faster than the molecules in a cold material, and therefore have a higher kinetic energy. The molecules in a hot cup of coffee have more kinetic energy than the molecules in a cold glass of water.

Rapid drink coolers pass cool water over your aluminum can or glass bottle as a roller spins the container. When cool water passes over the surface of the can or bottle, the water is colder than the surface it's touching. This allows heat energy from the warmer material -- the drink container you'd like to chill -- to transfer to the colder material: the cool water that passes over the container. The water that passes over the bottle or can is recycled into a compartment filled with ice (which keeps the water at cold temperatures), and the process repeats itself. The machine spins cans or bottles with an electric motor in order to cool the drink evenly.

A rapid drink cooler can be useful during any number of occasions, especially during hot summer months when people are outside and enjoying drinks at large gatherings. For instance, if you need to provide six people with six cold drinks sooner than later, instead of throwing a six-pack in the freezer or a cooler full of ice and waiting for the drinks to chill, a rapid drink chiller should be able to satisfy everyone in about six minutes. Depending on the size of the drink, you can normally chill a can of soda in one minute or a larger bottle in three to four minutes.

So far, we've only mentioned big, planned gatherings involving lots of people, but rapid drink chillers are also great for unexpected guests, and quick, improvised dinners. When someone pops over with a six-pack of beer or soda or a bottle of white wine, rather than wait around for drinks to chill, you can solve the problem in mere minutes. White wines, typically served chilled, can be ready almost immediately after you step in the house. And since making a big dinner can get complicated, with many steps along the way, chilling drinks quickly right before serving time makes the whole process easier.

To operate a rapid drink cooler like the Cooper Cooler One Minute Drink Chiller, you simply fill up a compartment with water and ice. After placing the can or bottle you'd like to chill into a small nook and closing the lid, you can adjust settings and temperatures. (Even though the One Minute Drink Chiller looks too small for a bottle of wine, there's a small hole on one end that lets the bottle's neck stick out from the machine.) Rapid drink chillers can chill cans of soda or beer down to 38 degrees Fahrenheit (3.3 degrees Celsius), and they can chill wine bottles, which shouldn't be quite as cold, down to temperatures around the low 50s (10-12 degrees Celsius). The compartment spins drinks to cool them evenly, and a no-spin option within the device can protect delicate wines from being shaken up too much.

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