Princess and I went to a new Sushi place yesterday, which was quite inventive, using fruit like pears and apples and mango, making delicious sushi, despite lackluster rice selection… but I disgress. The place is BYO, and for non-regular readers (as if I had anything but, these days :-P), and those that haven’t had a chance to move here yet, that means Bring Your Own (booze). So we went to a liquor store to find some wine, before we went to the Sushiya.

Now the selection in the Chilled Wine section wasn’t up to our exacting standards, but the nice store manager said he had a solution, and the Princess seemed to know what he was talking about… and we were taken to a strange machine… an express bottle chiller.

Yes, my poor, benighted European friends, the yanks have outdone themselves again… they have invented the opposite of the microwave oven, and it is just as fast!

Just stick the bottle in, dial for 6 minutes, and the things humms gently to itself. Now the engineer in me HAD to know what was going on, and asked a few questions… Turns out the case is filled with a glycol, antifreeze if you prefer, which is chilled to -10 degrees C and remains liquid nonetheless. Ten degrees better than an ice bucket, in other words.

The bottle was a little greasy coming out of there, but it only took a little longer in an ice bucket at the restaurant for use to enjoy our delicious (french) Pouilly Fume with the Samurai rolls.

Ah, the power of instant gratification, imported engineers and capitalism…