I've been using these for many weeks now. I strongly recommend getting them if you think you'd like to have pop or Yoohoo slushies. Definitely worth the money.
I bought 2 for myself, figuring I'd want to use one while the other freezes, and I was right. It's nice to not have to think about that since I can rotate them out. Also, for the first 2 weeks or so I drank one basically every day. Now, I use them every few days on average, now that my curiosity is gone. They seem very durable.
So the way it works is there are 3 pieces: a white inner cup, the outside cup, and a spoon. The outside cup and spoon are just that. The white inner cup is where the magic happens. You freeze just that part, and then you take it out, put it into the outer cup (it's just a nice shell that holds it stable and keeps your hands from freezing), pour your drink into the inner cup, wait a few minutes, stir, wait, stir, and then you have a delicious slushy (not the crappy kind, unless you make it poorly and let it over-freeze - see below).
The reason this works and why you can't just use a regular cup is because the inner white cup has some kind of a refrigerant inside the walls of the cup (don't worry though, everything is well-made and durable). This refrigerant is what you're freezing and it allows the cup to maintain a super cold temperature for a long period of time, thus allowing the slushy to form. The difficulty is that the liquid touching the walls of the inner cup freezes first, especially when the cup is super cold at first. So, all you have to do to fix that is take the hard plastic spoon provided, and what I do is push the bottom edge of the spoon against the bottom of the cup and kind of curl it up against the wall. If you do this after a few minutes, the entire outer frozen shell of the liquid will pop up, and all you have to do is push that in towards the middle. After 2 maybe 3 of these operations, your slushy is made. You can also kinda make your slushy thicker or thinner (thinner tastes better imo) by how active you are while the liquid freezes. If you're super active and stirring or whatever a lot then it will be very thin.
Here are some important tips if you're planning on buying these:
- Don't use with watery drinks like gatorade, grape juice, tea, etc. These will "work", but they're not going to taste delicious, they'll just taste too much like ice, as if you just poured water in, and too little like a sugary delight. Pop, on the other hand, and Yoohoo's, and even Starbucks frappes, all work *excellently*, and they're very delicious.
- Don't try pouring sugar or honey in, they're not going to mix very well or at all (especially the honey). Yes, I did this just out of curiosity. The result will be you'll feel like your honey was not used as well as it could have been and you will cry for the rest of your life. :*(** Also, pouring a milkshake of some fashion in is a waste, cuz it's already slushed...
- You want these things to be as cold as possible. Technically, you could use them twice, but in reality, you're not going to want to do this much because the thing only holds its freeze for so long, and by the time you make your slushy and finish it, it will only just barely be cold enough or it just may not be cold enough (and I keep my freezer cold!).
- They do work with ice cream (to make floats); however, note that there's only so much room in the cup. You could put a few scoops in there and pour maybe 1/3 or 1/2 of a can in to fill up - and it will be delicious - but your dessert may be smaller than you'd hope. I do believe it is slightly more delicious than if I use a regular (or regular frozen) cup, simply because it keeps it nice and cold and frosty, though.
- DO NOT LET IT OVER-FREEZE! You will eventually be able to eat it, but the real problem is that once your drink is over-frozen, there's no going back. You can't make it into a nice slushy or a regular drink again, because the water freeze has already taken over. You can put it in the freezer for about 7 minutes and pull it out and make your slushy a little faster, but it's REALLY hard in my experience to remember and/or take the initiative at exactly 7 minutes to take it back out of the freezer. I therefore strongly recommend that you just make it normally, use only 3/4 of the can of pop, and drink the rest while you wait.
There's only 1 critique I can make: I really wish this was just a little bigger, maybe 25-50% bigger, so I could use a full can of pop and ideally several solid big scoops of ice cream. Then it would be 6/5!
| Brand | Zoku |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Zoku |
| Model number | CC113 |
| Part Number | CC113 |
| Batteries Included | No |
| Batteries Required | No |
| Includes AC Adapter | No |
| Manufacturer | Zoku |
| Item model number | CC113 |
| Product Dimensions | 10 x 10.16 x 16.6 cm; 500 Grams |
| ASIN | B01M28ZDMT |
