The best blenders for frozen drinks

As any host knows, it can be difficult to enjoy your own party when you’re fussing over food and frozen drinks. That’s why any game plan should include dishes you can prepare ahead of time. A slow cooker will take care of the chili but what about the icy drinks? Serious Eats has a recipe for a make-ahead margarita so at party time all you need to do is add fresh ice to a capable blender. That’s where Consumer Reports comes in.

Our blender tests are geared to getting the best frozen drinks and smoothies you can make. We prepare non-alcoholic piña coladas then strain the concoction through a sieve. The best blenders don’t leave any chunks or lumps behind. In another test, we time how fast it takes to crush seven ice cubes. In the end, four blenders made our list of top blender picks and a few other contenders were near misses.

Best blenders from our tests

The Vitamix Professional Series 750, $650, claims the top spot, cranking out superb frozen drinks and purées. It also aced our tough ice crush and durability tests, meaning it should hold up over time. But $650 is a lot to pay for a countertop appliance. For much less, consider the Dash Chef Series Digital blender, $200, which was excellent in our smoothie and purée tests. Rounding out the list are the Blendtec Designer 725, also $650, which features several innovations, including intuitive, pre-programmed settings, and the Waring Xtreme MX1000R, $350, an 8-cup commercial blender that is one of the quietest models we tested. You’ll appreciate that at game time.

Other worthy contenders

The affordable Ninja Professional NJ600, $100, narrowly missed our recommended list. It performed very well overall, especially when it comes to smoothies and convenience. And if you plan to dedicate your blender to icy drinks and smoothies consider the Black+Decker Fusion Blade Digital BL1820SG-P. It’s only $50 and earned excellent scores in our icy drink test.

Make-ahead margarita. As for that margarita recipe, Serious Eats recommends making the margarita base a day, or even a week, before and keeping it in a sealed container in the freezer. The alcohol will prevent it from freezing. You can adapt this method for other frozen drink recipes.

—Mary H.J. Farrell (@mhjfarrell on Twitter)

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