Weather and drinking

How quickly will your drink warm

A drink warms up quickest the first 15 minutes after coming out of the cooler. Aluminum cans cool down quicker, but on hot days, choose glass bottles if you want more time for a cooler beverage.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Warm weather may encourage more drinkers to slam cold ones faster at the Florida-Georgia game. But how long do you have before your bottle becomes sacrificed to Jacksonville's heat?

Several factors will keep your drink cooler longer.

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Choosing a glass bottle on a hot day slows the rate of warming slightly compared to an aluminum can.

A cold drink keeps warming until it reaches the same temperature as the air around it. The time it takes to reach equilibrium is dependent on several factors including container thickness, size of the container and rate of condensation due to humidity.

On an 80 degree day, pulling your glass bottle out of a 35 degree cooler will take just 5 minutes for your drink to warm to 40 degrees. After 35 minutes it jumps to 51 degrees. The warm up starts quickly but slows down after an hour to 59 degrees. After two hours outside the temperature reaches 71 degrees...about as cool as a spring-fed stream.

Just remember when time comes to chill, an icy bath of water will cool faster than a chest of unmelted ice. 


About the Author

After covering the weather from every corner of Florida and doing marine research in the Gulf, Mark Collins settled in Jacksonville to forecast weather for The First Coast.

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