Just Chillin’

From dilution damage limitation to exploding bottle prevention, Thomson & Scott gives the lowdown on cooling your Skinny Prosecco in less time than it takes to… open a bottle. You’re welcome.

We’ve all been there. Emergency ice cube time, or sticking your bottle in the freezer and clock-watching.

Wine experts advise:

• Chilling Skinny Champagne and Skinny Prosecco at a steady 8-10°C (47-50°F) for at least three hours.
• Preferably in a wine fridge kept at a constant temperature.
• With an ice bucket at the ready once the cork is popped.
• And vigilance maintained with a thermometer if you’re really keen/swanky/a bit in need of a lie-down somewhere dark and quiet.

But blah blah blah. That isn’t real life.

Real life is those aforementioned emergency ice cubes. Or exploding bottles in the freezer because you got bored and didn’t remember till you wake up in a cold (oh, the irony) sweat at 3.35am.

Some Skinny fans even – look away now if you’re the nervous type – drink their Skinny Champagne Grand Cru WARM. I know. SCREAM.

Like a lot of real life, it’s not fair and it can get messy. But there are ways to chill your fizz when you’re looking to drink it in 0-60. You just need to chill out.

Instant Bucks Fizz

This one gives you a shot of healthy orange juice. The trick is to FREEZE the orange juice into ice cubes and keep on standby. Ok purists, admittedly ice cubes cause some of the bubbles to pop while the fizz is chilling. But as the Skinny Champagne or Skinny Prosecco turns into a Vitamin C-packed cocktail while the orange ice cubes melt, isn’t it worth saying goodbye to a little bit of sparkle? Your smile can do that instead.

Healthy hedonism in a heartbeat

Fruit cocktails don’t begin and end with Buck’s Fizz. What about a Raspberry Ripple, Passionfruit Pizazz or Amazing Apple*. Puree or mush chosen fruit, decant into ice cube trays, freeze. Instant fruit karma. Just don’t try with banana. Only monkeys need yellow cocktails.

Playing floral ping pong

We love, love, love this gorgeous image. Created for dim sum restaurant chain Ping Pong – we’re on the wine list there, just fyi – edible flowers are frozen into ice cubes to look, well, completely adorable. They’ll melt your heart while they chill your drink. And we like to think of them as salad.

Dilution damage limitation

Ice cubes. See above. That one has a flower in it so we’ll let it get away with its naughty drink dilution properties. But on a regular day we prefer drinking our Skinny Champagne or Skinny Prosecco as nature intended. So freeze the last little bit from every bottle you drink and you’ll have alcoholic ice cubes. No false modesty, we know this is genius. *Blush*

Fridge in the frame

If you’re a vodka fan you’ll probably already have a few bottles of the stuff rattling around next to your peas and fish fingers. But vodka has such a high alcohol content that it doesn’t freeze – UNLIKE SKINNY PROSECCO AND SKINNY CHAMPAGNE. Some things are worth saying twice.

We like to keep our champagne flutes in the fridge and ready for tepid fizz emergencies. Again, these see off a few bubbles, but we’d rather be cool than tepid any day.

*Made-up cocktail name alert. No mixologists were consulted in the creation of this blog post.

Published: 19/05/2017