Ask someone what they forgot the first time they hosted a holiday and the answer is rarely a dish. It is drinks. The meal gets weeks of thought, and the one thing every guest wants within a minute of walking in gets none.
The refrigerator is the reason. By the morning of a holiday it is full, and full of things that have to be there — the bird, the pie, the cream, whatever was made ahead. Drinks lose that competition in every house, every year. A cooler is not an admission of poor planning. It is the right equipment for a job the refrigerator is not doing.
For the quickest cooling, fill the cooler with ice and then pour in water, so each drink is surrounded by cold. Cans in ice water chill roughly twice as fast as cans buried in dry ice cubes. A handful of salt makes it faster still.
For a sit-down dinner, the answer is a separate table. Ice bucket, glasses, bottles and an opener, with guests serving themselves. Keep it clear of the food, so one line is not doing two jobs, and out of the kitchen, so nobody is standing where the cooking is happening.
Put it near the door people come in through. A guest holding something in the first two minutes will not need anything else from the host for a good while.
Rick Good spent ten years in the newspaper business, including with The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) and The Greenville News (Greenville, SC). He co-wrote, with Melinda Coleman, Rutledge to Riley: Governors of South Carolina, 1776–Present (Published by The Greenville News), and is the author of Mind Games Trivia #1 (Amazon). He has recently spent 15 years creating original trivia content through Sounds Good Mobile Entertainment and continues that with his new company, SGME Software. He edits The Smart Reader’s money, real estate, and business coverage.
