Summer may be winding down, but there’s still plenty of time to cool off with a beverage cooler for all your refreshments. To some, it may seem excessive to have both a refrigerator and a beverage cooler in your kitchen, but this isn’t your dorm room’s mini-fridge. Beverage coolers are made to chill and to display, and look good doing it. Their small to medium size allows them to become a fixture of your home without you needing to let out a wall in the kitchen or any other huge renovation to fit one. You can replace an empty cupboard with one, have it installed underneath your counter tops or kitchen island, or leave it freestanding. Make your kitchen more usable for entertaining, keep your alcohol guarded, and free up tons of space in your refrigerator with the addition of only one appliance.
1. They’re More Efficient Than A Mini-Fridge
So why not just get a mini-fridge? A beverage cooler is different from a mini-fridge because the shelves are designed specifically for beverages rather than food. In a lot of models, these shelves pull out to allow you to grab a long bottle without banging it against the roof of the container and store the bottles horizontally to save space. Having pull out shelves also typically means that more of the cooling unit is being used per square inch, making it more efficient than a typical mini-fridge as well.
2. Keep Plenty Of Cold Drinks On Hand (And On Display) For A Party
A kitchen beverage cooler is great for parties when you have lots of beverages circulating and need all the refrigerator room you can get. Whether it’s having a stack of two-liters on standby or extra champagne after the celebratory uncorking spills everywhere, extra space in a cooling unit in the kitchen is incredibly vital to keep the party going. You can also use a unit like this to discourage guests from snooping in your fridge while on a beverage hunt, since beverage have a clear display of available drinks that are meant for them.
3. Keep Your Liquor Locked Up (But Still A Drinkable Temperature)
On top of the extra space, beverage coolers can be locked much like a liquor cabinet. If you have curious kids–or particularly entitled guests over–you may notice that your alcohol tends to disappear when left unattended in the refrigerator. Rather than keeping it hidden or locked away in a cupboard where it’s left to climb to room temperature, many beverage coolers on the market come with locks. You can enjoy a chilled beer any time without having to worry that someone else may also be doing so without your permission.
4. Display And Preserve Your Wine Collection
Not all of us can have our own wine cellars, but you can mimic the feeling of having crisp, cold wine always ready by using a kitchen beverage cooler as wine storage. You can use the clear glass door as a way of displaying your wine selection without opening the door and letting the air out into your kitchen, saving energy. Some models can have UV protection, which keeps the sun from fading the bottle labels while on display.
5. Keep From Crowding Your Refrigerator With Cold Drinks
If you don’t have room for a second fridge in the basement or garage, you can keep your drinks from being shoved in the back of the shelves behind your leftovers with a kitchen beverage cooler as your secondary refrigerator. This also allows you to balance the vertical amount of space in your fridge better when it comes to stacking leftover containers and boxed food products, because you won’t be placing things on top of rounded bottles. It may seem like a little thing, but adding a new, smaller cooling unit to your kitchen is a great way to beat the heat.
