Frozen Drinks at Home?

Wall Street Journal

5 days ago

The Slushi makes slushies, of course, turning drinks of all sorts, from soda to juice to cocktails, into frozen(ish) concoctions. The mechanics are simple. Pour 16 to 64 ounces of your beverage in the top of the vessel, choose from one of five preset programs (slush, spiked slush, frappé, milkshake or frozen juice) and in 15 minutes to an hour, your frozen treat will be ready. The machine looks similar to the frozen drink maker you might see behind a bar, on a smaller scale. There's a metal evaporator at the core, attached to a motor, with a plastic auger that keeps the liquid moving around it as it freezes. All of that is housed in the transparent plastic vessel with a built-in pour spout.
I primarily focused on the slush and spiked slush settings in my testing. The output of each was somewhere between the micro-pebbly ice texture of a Slush Puppie and a smooth, airy Slurpee from 7-Eleven, depending on the freeze setting, although it was inconsistent. For example, a cream soda slush was too thick to smoothly dispense at its default setting, but turning down the temperature one notch brought it closer to a liquid than was ideal.
Across my tests, the slushes were never totally homogeneous, as there was always some discernible liquid surrounding the frozen beverage. While it didn't make the treat any less tasty, it was noticeable every time, and a little surprising for a premium device.
I recently hosted a Fourth of July party where I put the Slushi to the test. I started with a frozen Negroni recipe I found on YouTube, made with the standard gin, Campari and sweet vermouth, plus orange juice and grapefruit juice to cut down the alcohol percentage and increase the sugar content. After an hour of roaring and whining, the mixture was still liquid, suggesting the alcohol content was too high to properly freeze. I added some more juice and within about half an hour had a delicious, and, just as importantly, frozen slushie. It was gone almost as quickly.
Ninja includes a manual with a handful of recipes and, more importantly, guidelines for making your own concoctions. Slushes need to have certain sugar and alcohol thresholds to freeze properly, and the instructions can help you figure out the right proportions. Cleanup is relatively easy, especially because the removable components are dishwasher safe.
Does anyone actually need this slushie maker at home? Probably not. Will it be the star of the party if you have one? Almost certainly. While it's not perfect, it's hard not to love the Slushi for what it is.