Choosing An Ice Bucket For Home Bar And Commercial Use

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Ice buckets are ideal for the best hosts / bartenders. Guests who like to help themselves, or just for keeping bottles chilled. We have you covered whatever your ice bucket needs.

When planning summer get togethers, you need to have an ice bucket nearby to keep ice cubes for drinks or to uses as a container for champagne or wines. The basic type ice buckets in hotels that we have all seen before carry out their purpose of holding ice cubes. But keeping the ice cubes from melting are not part of their design.

Ice bucket prices range between $25 to $100 or more. Kitchen supply stores sell ice buckets that you can find listed online. The latest stainless steel ice buckets have double-walled insulation to keep your ice cubes intact for about an hour. Another important characteristic to look for when purchasing an ice bucket are the models with a strainer at the bottom. The strainer keeps the melted water away from the ice cubes that are left behind. Until a few years ago, styles were limited. Most ice buckets typically accommodate about 1 to 4 quarts of ice cubes and most are sold with tongs or a scooper to get the ice out without using your fingers or hands. The main thing you want is to limit is condensation. If you don’t, the cubes are likely to melt away. Ice buckets can be made from plastic, glass, stainless steel, copper, and sometimes encased with acrylic containers. Many of the popular ice bucket models are silver colored stainless steel. If you are going to purchase an ice bucket to chill a bottle of champagne or wine, you need to make sure to buy a bucket that is big enough to hold a bottle of that size. Most ice buckets have lids that have to be entirely removed to get to the ice. Some top selling ice buckets have flip up lids that are particularly convenient. We favor the buckets that are supplied with tongs as opposed to the scoops, however watch out for undersized tongs that are too small to grasp larger ice cubes. Scoops are particularly suited if you are making large batches of cold drinks like Margaritas. A nationally known journal recently reviewed and compared 5 stainless steel ice buckets. The buckets were filled with ice and placed in a warm room in order to see how the ice would last for an hour. Other characteristics such as design, price, and tongs versus scoops were incorporated into the rating method to produce a winner.