Ina Garten's Clever Wine Trick Is A Must-Know This Holiday Season
A new way to chill.
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Photo by James Ransom
Ina Garten wants to invite me over this holiday season for a crisp, cold glass of champagne. At least, that's how I'm interpreting her latest Instagram video of a brilliant hack for chilling bubbles—or wine—as quickly as possible:
The tip is simple: instead of using just ice, fill your chilling vessel with half water, too.
So, how does it work?
When we explored this expert hosting trick a while back, we learned that liquid transfers heat away from the bottle faster than the pockets of air that sit between ice cubes. Ergo, it expedites the overall process of moving energy (aka heat) away from the bottle of booze, leaving you with a chilled beverage.
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Over at Food52 HQ, we take things one step further—we're suckers for clever time-saving tricks, if you hadn't heard—by tossing our ice with a few handfuls of salt first, then adding the water. The addition of salt helps to lower the freezing point of the ice-water, meaning the ice in your vessel is melting more readily. To do so, it's taking energy from (you guessed it) the bottle.
In the words of Garten, "Fast champagne—who wouldn't want that?"
We'll cheers to that.
Do you have any other tricks for chilling wine or champagne quickly? Let us know in the comments.