Consumer Reports: Frose all day with a better blender

No summer party is complete without margaritas and other frozen drinks, which means you might need a blender that can handle crushing lots and lots of ice. Consumer Reports tested over 70 blenders to find out which ones can get the job done.

What better way to toast the arrival of warm weather than with a frozen cocktail?

"As of recent years the frose has become super popular so everyone's making frose's with different variations ... the aperol frose ...we've been doing a strawberry frose ..." said bartender Nick Macchi.

Macchi says the key to whipping up any type of frozen drink at home is getting the consistency right.

Consumer Reports says not all consumer-grade blenders are up to the task of making those perfect frosty drinks! Its ratings cover nearly 70 full sized blenders put through some pretty tough tests, including one for icy drinks.

"Only a handful actually aced the tests for the icy drinks," said Consumer Reports Home Editor Perry Santanachote.

Consumer Reports tests each blender with a batch of nonalcoholic piña coladas and use a series of increasingly smaller mesh sieves to evaluate smoothness and thickness. A blender only earns an Excellent if the drinks have a smooth, consistent texture.

"We're also testing how well a blender crushes ice without the help of water or using the pulse button," Santanachote said.

A blender that garners an Excellent rating in Consumer Reports ice-crushing tests serves up ice that looks uniformly like snow. Bigger ice chips and chunks give a blender a lower score.

Vitamix's Professional Series 750 has held a top spot in CR's ratings for quite some time but it's pricey: $650! For $100 consider the Ninja Professional. It's excellent when it comes to blending up an icy drink and demolishes the ice crush test.

"The best thing you can do for an at home frose is use high quality ingredients," Macchi said. "You only get back from it what you put into it."

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