My mother's linen survived fifty Easters of gravy. Then I kept our anniversary wine cold.

For three seconds after Allison lifted that bucket, nobody moved, and then all eight of us tried to save the cloth at once.

Jim's sister Carol dumped club soda on the ring. My neighbor Peg shook salt over it like she was seasoning a ham. And Jim, God love him, poured his white wine on it, because he'd heard white wine takes out red. The ring wasn't red. My mother's tablecloth looked like the rim of a margarita glass.

That was Peg. But fifty Easters of gravy came out of that cloth, and the water never did.

My mother hemmed that linen by hand in 1971 and set it every Easter until the spring she died. It came to me in tissue paper with a note in her slanty hand that said Use it. So I did.

The dry cleaner held it up to her window like an X-ray. “Old linen browns where water dries,” she said. “I can make it lighter. I can't make it gone.”

So the cloth went back into its tissue paper, and I bought wipe-clean placemats with lemons on them. When friends came in June, I poured from the kitchen counter like a waitress at my own party.

If you love a pretty table, you've probably done the dance with the towel under the bucket and the napkin wrapped around the bottle like a newborn. I thought that was the price of cold wine, until my daughter got out a baking sheet.

Allison put my ice bucket on trial in her kitchen

Allison teaches chemistry, and she once fixed a typo in her own wedding program during the vows. So when I kept calling the ring my fault, she marked it wrong.

She set my bucket of ice water and Viognier on a brown paper bag on a baking sheet. Every fifteen minutes she traced the wet edge with a Sharpie, and by the end of lunch the bag looked like a hurricane map.

“It's leaking,” I said.

“It's sweating,” she said, “like Dad on a ladder. Cold pulls water out of warm air, and it runs straight down.”

Then she lifted the bottle to pour, and ice water dripped a dotted line across the paper to her glass.

“The bucket did its job, and your wine was cold. But it keeps the cold outside the bottle, in a pot of ice water, on Grandma's cloth. It fixes the wine and forgets the table.” She tapped the biggest ring. “There's your April, Mom. You did exactly what the bucket asked.”

Then she pulled a white tablecloth out of a Target bag. “Now let's find something that passes.”

So we ruined a Target tablecloth on purpose

Her test was one question. Can the bottle stay cold on the table with no ice water on the cloth?

The bucket on a silver tray with a towel saved the cloth under it. But the bottle still rained on the way to every glass, and Allison stuck a yellow Post-it by each drop. By dessert there were eleven, and Jim asked if it was report card day.

A frozen gel sleeve looked tidy and stayed dry, but by the pork chops it was as warm as a sock, and so was the wine. The fridge kept the cloth perfect, but I got up six times, and Jim started saying “Welcome back” whenever I sat down. Ice cubes kept my glass cold, but the bottle warmed up on the cloth, and the ice just moved the puddle into my wine.

“Everything we tried keeps the cold outside the bottle or back in the kitchen,” Allison said. “So the cold has to be inside the bottle, right here on the table.”

“Is that even a thing?” I asked. She already had her phone out.

Jim bet me a steak dinner it would leave a ring

I almost didn't look, because my drawer of wine gadgets already holds a foil cutter shaped like a fish that has never cut foil. But this one would never meet the fish, because it lives in the freezer next to the peas.

It's a rod of 304 food-grade stainless steel with a clear spout on top. It slides into the open bottle and cools the wine from the inside out. You pour right through the spout, so it never leaves the bottle, and there's no ice water on the table at all.

Jim read the box like it was a car loan. “A cold bottle still sweats. I'll bet you a steak dinner it leaves a ring.”

“A little,” I said, “so it stands on a coaster. But there's no bucket sweating next to it.”

“And when that thing thaws, it'll water the wine down like your ice cubes did.”

“Dad, it's steel, not ice,” Allison said. “It can't melt, so nothing waters the wine down, and it keeps what you pour cold for up to three hours. And it pours without a drip, so my Post-its can retire.”

It came as a pair from Lindner & Co, and since it needs about an hour in the freezer the first time, Allison froze both at five-thirty.

At six-thirty Allison opened a cold bottle on the Target cloth, slid the rod in and stood it on a cork coaster. After every glass, she checked the cloth like a mother feeling for a fever.

At nine she lifted the bottle. There was no puddle and no dotted line, and not one Post-it had left the pad. She poured one more glass, held it to the light like a test tube, sipped and turned to her father.

“Cold and dry, Dad. I'll have the rib eye.”

See how it works →

Same eight people, same cloth, and Allison reaching for the bottle

In September I took my mother's cloth out of its tissue paper, and my hands shook while I smoothed it. Carol brought club soda, just in case. Each bottle stood on my mother's silver coaster, and the ice bucket stayed in the pantry, holding onions.

At nine-thirty Allison stood to clear and reached for the bottle first, and the whole table stopped chewing. She lifted it, looked down and grinned at me. There was no ring, no puddle and no dotted line to my glass. Peg leaned in with her reading glasses and looked almost disappointed, because Peg loves a story.

Jim filled my glass right over the linen and said, “Okay. Best steak I ever lost.” The second rod went home in Allison's purse.

The old ring is still there under a bowl of apples, and it's going to stay the only one. Use it, the note said. So now I do.

I wasn't the only one. 4.8/5 · 370 reviews:

Easy to use and cools better than an ice bucket does for us.

Thomas Damstra

Handy that the cap also seals; no drips on the tablecloth.

Lars van Dam

Very happy with it! Wine stays cool longer at the table.

Finn Dijkstra

If you have a cloth you'd never lend, here's what I'd do

Keep one of the pair in your freezer next to the peas, and give the other to the friend whose good cloth lives in tissue paper, too. If it fails your own tablecloth test, send it back within 30 days for your money back.

Thanksgiving is less than nine weeks away, and that's the day the good linen comes out. Get yours now, and give it Allison's Post-it test before the gravy boat lands.

Your good cloth wasn't made to live in tissue paper. Put it back on the table, and pour.

Bring the good cloth back →

Susan

This is a dramatized story based on experiences customers have shared with us. Names and details are illustrative. The reviews above are real, unedited customer reviews.