Keep It Cool: See How a Beverage Cooler Can Enhance Your Home

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From keeping your family’s favorite drinks chilled to storing wines at the perfect temperature, wine and beverage coolers can be a host’s best asset and a boost to convenience in everyday life. Today’s models are sleeker than ever and are designed to integrate into kitchen cabinetry, slot into spaces close to home offices and family rooms, or complement an outdoor kitchen setup. Imagine the luxury of having a perfectly chilled craft beer, refreshing seltzer or any other drink of your choice waiting for you at the end of the day — or on hand when guests drop by for a visit.

Read on to discover the ways a wine and beverage cooler can enhance your family’s lifestyle, including considerations on which size might make the most sense for your needs, the best cooler types for preserving wine collections, ideas for placement and more.

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Keep Drinks on Hand

When considering where to install a wine or beverage cooler, think about where you could benefit most from easy access to perfectly chilled drinks. Including a beverage cooler close to your dining table or kitchen means you’ll have beverages on hand during mealtimes, so there’s no need to keep getting up from the table. Plus, as these are the two rooms where people tend to congregate, placing the cooler in one of them is ideal for entertaining, making it easy for guests to help themselves.

And don’t worry if wine isn’t your beverage of choice, as beverage coolers perfectly chill everything from craft beer to juices to sparkling water and drinks for the kids. There are models that feature full-extension wood racks to make storing drinks easy, such as the Zephyr Presrv™ Full Size Beverage Cooler, which also dips down to 34 degrees — the ideal temperature for craft beer, soda, hard seltzers and other beverages. Plus, this model features a full-extension rollout bin, which offers plenty of space for stashing cans and single-serve bottles.

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Beverage coolers can also add style and convenience to other areas of your home. Your home office could be an ideal location if you work remotely and would benefit from having sparkling water to stay hydrated or an iced coffee or soda for that afternoon caffeine boost. Or how about adding one to your family entertainment room? You’ll never have to pause the movie or risk missing that action scene to get up and grab a drink. If you’re into hosting game nights, think of the luxury of having cold drinks on hand to fuel a Monopoly marathon or keep your team’s thirst quenched as it stakes a claim in Catan.

Bonus tip: Consider the design of your wine and beverage cooler to complement your unique aesthetic. With models offered in matte black, stainless steel and panels that match cabinetry, your cooler can instantly upgrade your space. You can further customize the look by selecting a matte black or brushed gold handle to tie in with your appliances and hardware.

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Choose the Right Size and Layout

Wine and beverage coolers come in many sizes and styles, catering to those with more compact homes as well as those with room to spare. If you like to entertain and have the space for a larger appliance, a full-size cooler could be right for you. Compact models are ideal for tucking underneath kitchen countertops, integrating into kitchen islands or turning an unused corner into the perfect home bar.

Standard-size beverage coolers can store a surprising volume, which helps take pressure off trying to pack everything into your main refrigerator. To give you some idea of what to expect, a compact dual-zone wine cooler will hold about 45 bottles, while a full-size model can house up to 168 bottles, making it ideal for those with large collections or for that wine club membership you joined on your last trip.

It’s also worth exploring the range of designs available and finding one best suited to your family’s favorite drinks and usage. Models with a French door, as pictured here, generally have the internal shelf space split down the middle to allow for wine storage on one side and individual beverages on the other. Single-door designs work well if you’d like more ample horizontal shelf space, to store full-size bottles or to slide in a tray of appetizers to chill before a party.

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For the Love of Wine

Stashing wine bottles in kitchen cupboards and on countertops doesn’t just clutter those spaces, it also degrades the quality of the wine. In general, wine is best stored at consistent, cool temperatures to develop its flavors. Wine coolers take the guesswork out of how to properly store wine for aging, while also keeping bottles at the perfect temperature for enjoyment right away.

Models with dual-temperature zones allow you to separate wines you’d like to store (usually at 55 degrees Fahrenheit) from those you’d like to drink now. While the optimal drinking temperature depends on the wine varietal — and which vintner or sommelier you ask — generally speaking, most experts suggest that reds are best enjoyed at between 59 and 62 degrees, while whites, rosés, Champagne and sparkling wine should be enjoyed at between 45 and 50 degrees, depending on varietal and your personal preference.

Do you fancy yourself a bit of a wine connoisseur? In that case, select a cooler model such as the Zephyr Presrv™ Full Size Single Zone Wine Cooler, which can store up to 148 bottles with precise temperature and humidity controls. It also features a vibration-dampening system, which helps minimize wine disturbance, much like tucking bottles away in an underground cellar.

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If you’d like the flexibility of storing both reds and whites, look for a model like the Zephyr Full Size Dual Zone Wine Cooler that offers all of the benefits of the single-zone model with the added flexibility of two separate temperature zones.

With either model, you won’t need to worry about scuffing the labels of your prized bottles. All Zephyr wine coolers have specific racks for large-diameter bottles — such as Champagne, pinot noir and Bordeaux-style bottles — to prevent the labels from tearing or snagging on the shelf above. And don’t forget to look for features that make life easier, such as full-extension wood racks and glass doors that show you at a glance the location of each bottle in your collection.

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Utilize Space

Not all of us are blessed with spacious rooms that can show off a full-height cooler, but that’s not to say you can’t include a standard-size model somewhere in your home. Consider carefully and you might discover that you can utilize alcoves and areas between rooms, odd corners and even understair spaces to fit a more compact cooler.

Once you’ve selected a spot for your cooler, consider how to best maximize the space inside it to store your favorite drinks. For example, the single-zone beverage cooler pictured here optimizes internal space with a retractable glass quarter shelf that allows storage of taller upright bottles alongside single-serve drinks.

If you’re integrating a beverage cooler into a living space or as part of a home bar, it’s worth considering how the model will complement the overall look of the room. Select a cooler finish to tie in with hardware or lamps in the space or a model that has attractive LED lighting to make it a feature in its own right in a family room or as part of a bar.

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Go Outdoors

Thanks to patio heaters, comfortable furniture and built-in shade, many of us are using our outdoor spaces year round, both to enjoy with our families and to entertain. A wine and beverage cooler integrated into your outdoor kitchen saves trips back and forth into the house and allows guests to help themselves to drinks. Dedicated outdoor coolers are built with corrosion-resistant stainless steel, ensuring they’ll stay looking their best regardless of the weather.

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Drinks aren’t the only things you can keep in your outdoor beverage cooler. You’ll find them useful for items you’d like to briefly keep cool while entertaining, such as fruit garnishes for drinks and veggies for the grill.

Whether you’re looking to make hosting more effortless, preserve your wine collection or up the fun factor on family nights, a wine and beverage cooler could be just the thing to bring a little more luxury to your day-to-day life.

More: To find out more about the range of wine and beverage coolers featured in this story, visit Zephyr’s website.

This story was written by the Houzz Sponsored Content team.