8 Essential Booze Hacks

As the wise April Ludgate once said, alcohol is fun and delicious. But it can also be hard, particularly if you're missing a corkscrew or are short on time and cash. These booze hacks are here to help. Whether you're looking to cool down your beer in two minutes flat, open your wine with a shoe, or pass your cheap vodka off as something nicer, these moves will do the trick. Read up on the methods below, and please imbibe your boot wine responsibly.

Beer foam
Flickr/Marc Kubischta

Belgian scientists (who have nobly dedicated their lives to researching beer) discovered last year that passing brews through a glass tube with a magnet helped control foam. In theory, that means your Epcot souvenir fridge magnet should also do the trick, but if you need reinforcements, olive oil works as well.
 

Placing a canned drink in a bowl of iced, salty water lowers the temperature at a rapid rate, thanks to the second law of thermodynamics. It's a pretty great and simple way to cool down beer cans -- or, if you're an exceedingly classy person, canned white wine.

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You might be spending 98% of your waking hours indoors now, but in a few months, you'll be up to your eyeballs in cookout invites. And if you're a good guest, you'll be bringing a watermelon keg to all of them. Once you've mastered this important skill, you'll be all set to roll out a pumpkin keg for Halloween.

Vodka through Brita filter
Flickr/Shreyans Bhansali

Filter cheap vodka through your Brita

Trick your party guests into thinking you sprang for Belvedere when you actually dropped $4 on something called "Vudkka" by running it through your water filter. Some people will tell you three times is enough, while others insist you need five or six. It's ultimately your judgment call -- just be sure to label your experiment appropriately for unsuspecting roommates.
 

Put crappy wine in the blender

Similarly, you can amp up the quality of your cheap red wine by "aerating" it in your blender for 30-60 seconds. Eat it, decanters.

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For this project, you'll need one water cooler, one garbage disposal, a crap-ton of ice, your preferred bottle of tequila, and at least six bottles of margarita mix. The audience of ice cube-hungry dogs is optional, but encouraged.

Opening wine with a shoe
NPR

Can't find a corkscrew? You can still open your wine (and look like a one-shoed lunatic) by slamming the bottom of the bottle against the wall, with your shoe as buffer. Seeing as this technique removes the cork by blunt force, have your buddies waiting nearby with glasses on hand for the eventual Malbec geyser.

Alright, it might not be "essential" so much as kinda dangerous, but it looks pretty damn cool. And it's possibly more safe than snipering your Champagne.

Kristin Hunt is a Food/Drink staff writer for Thrillist, and now wants to put Two-Buck Chuck in a blender. Only she doesn't have one. Follow her to friends' kitchens at @kristin_hunt.