I bought it half-expecting a gimmick. Two hours into drinks on the patio, the wine was still cold.

Four o’clock on the back patio, the first glass of white, spring sun right across the table. The bottle stays out with us, because that is where everyone is. By the second pour the sun has got to it, and the friend on my left sets her glass down half finished. You cannot un-open a bottle — and the drawer under my coffee machine is already a graveyard of things I bought to fix exactly this.

A woman on a sunny back patio pouring white wine through the clear spout, two glasses of white already on the table beside a pot of spring bulbs and bowls of nibbles — the glass I expected to be warm by the second pour — The second pour, out in the sun. I had already decided it would disappoint me.

Electric corkscrew. Used twice.

One question I judge everything by now

Did it do more than I counted on? Not the first time — on the second glass, the second weekend, a month later.

The ice bucketdoes exactly what it promises, then the servo ice turns into a puddle on the table
The fridge relaythe bottle spends half the arvo inside while everyone is out the back
The neoprene sleevenever frozen on the day I actually need it
Ice in the glassmelts in the warm and thins the wine
The freezer sprintfine, right up until you forget the bottle is in there

The bucket wasn’t a mistake. It did exactly what it said it would do — that was the whole problem.

Everything in that drawer was precisely as good as it looked. Nothing was ever more.

A melting ice bucket on the kitchen table — it did exactly what it promised and nothing more — Kept its promise. Kept nothing else.

Why the least impressive thing on the table is the one that works

Cold from the outside has to cross the glass before it ever reaches the wine. Outdoors on a warm afternoon, the sun is working on that same glass, from the same side. That is why the bucket and the fridge never turn out better than they look — they work at the wrong end of the problem. Cold that starts inside the wine has no distance to travel.

Which is why the plainest object on the table is the one doing the work, and why it did more than I paid for it to do.

The Lindner & Co Wine Cooling Stick: a rod of 304 food-grade stainless steel. About an hour in the freezer. Into a bottle you have already opened, it brings the wine to serving temperature in 10 to 15 minutes and holds it there for up to three hours. The built-in spout aerates the wine as you pour, drip-free.

What I expectedOne clever arvo, then a quiet life in the drawer with all the others.

What actually happenedThe second glass, two hours later, was as cold as the first, sun and all. Nobody made a servo run for ice.

See how it works →

A bottle of white standing on the sun-warmed tiles at the edge of a backyard pool, the steel rod plainly visible inside it and the clear spout on top, turquoise water and garden behind — the object I didn't expect anything from — A white by the pool this time. A rod in the bottle, a spout on top — that’s the whole thing. I know.

Three things I do now

It lives in the freezer. About an hour the first time; after that it is simply there.
Into the bottle I have already opened. I pour a glass first to make room.
Pour through the spout. This is the part that surprised me most — it airs the wine on the way into the glass.

Nothing to charge, nothing to replace, dishwasher safe.

The one thing I didn’t buy it for.

A hand setting the steel rod on the wire shelf of an open freezer, beside two ice-cube trays and a bag of frozen peas — the gadget that never ended up in the junk drawer — Freezer shelf. Not the junk drawer.

What I still doubted

Another thing I’ll use once.

It lives in the freezer, not the junk drawer. No motor, no batteries, no gel pack, nothing in it to break. It goes in the dishwasher.

A piece of metal can’t do what a bucket does.

It does the opposite of what a bucket does. The cold starts in the wine, not on the outside where the sun is working, so it has no distance to cross: serving temperature in 10 to 15 minutes, and cold for up to three hours.

What if it doesn’t live up to it for me?

It fits standard 750ml bottles, screw caps included, and there is a 30-day refund policy.

A hand holding two steel rods with their clear spouts at an open home freezer, an ice-cube tray and a bag of frozen peas on the shelf — one for me, one for whoever asks — Both at the freezer. One for me, one for whoever asks.

Halfway through that first arvo with it, the friend on my left picked up the bottle and asked what the metal thing in the neck was — the second kit went home with her.

Buy one, get one free

Two complete kits: 2 chilling rods, 2 aerating spouts, 2 stoppers.

1 + 1 FreeA$74.99 2 + 2 FreeA$124.99 3 + 3 FreeA$169.99

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Free shipping Australia-wide · 30-day refund policy · 4.8/5 · 357 reviews

Other people who didn’t expect much

4.8/5 · 357 reviews

Started out sceptical, but now I don't want to be without it.

Tess Kok

It sat in my freezer for weeks .....only used it for the first time yesterday. Pleasantly surprised, very happy

Carina D.

A bottle of white with the clear spout on top and the steel rod inside, standing on a weathered timber bench at a sunny beach, a poured glass of white beside it and the sea behind — another weekend, the second glass still cold — Another weekend, down at the beach. Two hours in, still cold.

It still looks like nothing in the freezer. I just don’t open a bottle without it now — and summer’s not even here yet.

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Buy 1, Get 1 Free · A$74.9930-day refund policy

See what changed my mind →