reminds me of
but I kinda want one.
These are game changers. The Margaritaville is a glorified blender, and it needs ice to work. Frozen drinks water down so unless you’re drinking fast enough to get a brain freeze, you’ll have watered-down drinks. The Slushi just freezes whatever sugary liquids you put in it so a frozen Coke is literally just Coca-Cola, no ice or additives needed! The one caveat is that it has to be sugary; Coke Zero (or any kind of diet drink) won’t slush correctly because it doesn’t have the same type of sugar content. Other than that, it’s perfect: it’s a gas station Icee machine in the comfort of your home, with preset options for a bunch of types of drinks, including spiked slushes. My frosés are a hit (literally just frozen rosé wine), and we made frozen sparkling grape juice slushes (no alcohol) on New Year’s Eve for a pregnant friend of ours.
We have both machines, and the Margaritaville machine is at the bottom of our pantry, under layers of chip bags, wondering why it’s forgotten. The Ninja Slushi is prominently on our countertop.
I’m not getting paid by Ninja; I just need everyone to get these so I can stop lugging ours around to everyone’s parties…
I have a slushie machine just like this one but a different brand name. While I love mine, I have two caveats that folks should know:
- You have to be certain you need/want a slushie machine before getting one, if only because it’s a “one trick pony”. Admittedly it will make all different kinds of frozen drinks from frappes to wine chillers to soda pop slushies and it’s limited only by the ingredients you have, but all it does is make frozen drinks (and possibly soft serve ice cream, but that is up for some debate online).
- It takes up some countertop real estate due to it’s size. Think “Kitchenaid stand mixer” size, so it’s probably not something many people will leave out full time unless they have lots of extra space or a home bar. If you don’t leave it out, you may end up not using it as much as you would like if you have to set it up, fill it, run it, clean it, then put it away every time for just one or two glassfulls.
All that being said, Ninja was the first out of the gate so they got to set the original prices (which were pretty steep), making $159 good for this machine. However, the mothership has plenty of options for a new machine without the Ninja name at this price. That means you are paying full price for a refurbished machine with only a 90-day Woot warranty. Unless you really have to have the Ninja name, then just realize what you are getting.
Note - There’s a “5/15 Rule” for all slushie machines regardless of brand name. On average, your drinks must be greater than 5% sugar (REAL sugar, not artificial sweeteners) or less than 15% alcohol by volume in order to slush properly. So a “Pure Ever-Clear Slushie” is not really a thing…
What is not covered: Products sold on Woot with a manufacturer warranty, batteries, any problem that is caused by abuse or misuse of the product, or products described as “crap” or “crappy”. We think you knew that last one already, but it bears repeating.
So is the Ninja Slushie covered under Wood Warranty or not?
Yes, this has a
Warranty: 90 Day Woot Limited Warranty
I can’t do sugar. Not much options for me to lower the freezing point.
For anybody wondering if they should buy this one, or the one with the bubble cups for $20 more, I’d like to point out that Woot is selling these very economically priced stainless steel insulated tumblers right now:
Not only would you be saving $5, and spending $3.75 per cup instead of $10 per cup, but you’d be getting extra cups which I think is more ammenable to the party-type environment for which this machine is meant. Four 20 ounce cups also comes fairly close to the full capacity of the machine (although strictly speaking you’d need five if you wanted to fully empty it.)
Granted, they’re not bubble tops, but since they are 20 ounce cups rather than 16 ounce cups I would expect that they have some extra headroom that makes up for that a little if you don’t have your heart set on that aesthetic.
I make no comment on whether the Ninja cups or the Volleyball cups have better insulation mind you, since I have neither as of yet and do not plan on getting the Ninja cups to make the comparison. I will be buying the volleyball cups though. I have other insulated stainless steel tumblers, but they are a good in-between size to what I already have (40 and 12 ounce cups).
I mean you only need one, and alluose works. Not only does Ninja recommend Alluose on recipes on their website showing that this is manufacturer tested and approved, but I have tried it myself and am so willing to vouch for its ability to slush. I bought Viva Doria off of Amazon since it seems to have the best price per ounce in a somewhat reasonably small quantity.
It is a by-law zero calorie sweetener naturally occurring in small amounts in some plants like dates and wheat. It also does not spike blood sugar levels for diabetics.
Although the amount of calories in alluose is legally zero, in reality it actually does have caloric content. It’s only 10% of that in sugar though. It also shares some of the favorable properties for baking like the ability to brown, although it browns faster than actual sugar.
It tastes more like sucrose than some other alternatives I have tried too. It is subtly different but much less so than other substitutes. The biggest downside, aside from the price, is that you need to use more of it to make things as sweet. The general recommendation is a third of a unit more than what you would use of sugar. There are also some indigestion issues when consumed in excess, although I suppose the same can be said of sucrose.
Hey dude. Get a load of this!
Yeah, that’s basically a blender that dispenses ice cubes into the carafe as it churns. The various frozen slushie machines have a small compressor so you don’t need to add ice. I can do the same thing that the Key West Frozen Concoction Maker does with a $10.00 blender from Goodwill and an ice cube tray - which is how middle-aged divorced men and alcoholic housewives have been doing it for years!