No time? No problem-- chill wine in minutes. (iStock)
You're all ready to host your summer barbecue when you realize the bottles of white and rosé you bought are still in a bag on the kitchen table. With just a few minutes until your guests arrive you may think you're out of luck—but don't resort to throwing a few ice cubes in their glasses just yet. Here's a dead simple way to chill your wine down fast:
Step 1: Get ice and water.
If you pulled out your ice bucket—or any clean bucket, really—and filled it with cubes, you're heading in the right direction. Then fill it halfway with cold water. This creates a freezing cold bath for the bottle to hang out in, rather than being awkwardly stuffed amidst chunks of ice. Also liquid pulls heat away from the wine better than a solid (a.k.a. just ice cubes) would.
Step 2: Break out the salt shaker.
To get things really moving, add a couple of handfuls of salt to the mix. This works because salt helps lower the freezing point of the ice water bath, allowing it to become colder and, in turn, making your wine chill faster.
Step 3: Just keep spinning
Help the process along by gently spinning the bottle in the ice water ever few minutes, which moves the wine in the bottle around to it get exposed to more of the chilly water and ice.
After about 10 minutes...viola! Perfectly chilled wine.
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