The Quick Chill

Need to chill a bottle of wine (or a few bottles of beer) at the last minute? Salt is the answer.

Toss some ice into heavily salted water. This will lower the freezing point of the water. The result? Energy (i.e., heat) gets drawn from the surroundings to melt the ice. Normally, this would cause the water near the ice to freeze, but that won't happen with salt water. Instead, more heat is being drawn from whatever you are trying to chill. This is the same principle behind most ice cream makers.

A bottle of wine should chill down to an acceptable temperature in well under ten minutes with this method. Bottled beverages aren't the only thing you can chill this way either. If you have suggestions for other things, let me know in the comments, below.