Margaritaville DM0500 Bahamas 36-Ounce Frozen-Concoction Maker
by Margaritaville
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List Price: Our Price: $170.00 You Save: $109.99 (39%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $105.99 (click here) Category: Kitchen See more product details |
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Margaritaville DM0500 Bahamas 36-Ounce Frozen-Concoction Maker
Customer Review: Makes Margaritas too, but who cares?
Summary: 5 Stars
The first time we used it, we made margaritas. They came out perfectly! But we're more into on-the-rocks, so that was that. Note that it is dead simple to use, and cleans up very easily. Only ice goes in the ice bowl, other liquids only go in the blender container. The blender container disassembles easily to clean up, dry and reassemble in a couple of minutes, total. The ice bowl and water-catcher just need to be dried.
Since the first batch, like our daughter who has one of the larger units, we just use it to make shave ice and slushies. It is absolutely outstanding at making all of these frozen concoctions.
For shave ice, fill the ice container with ice cubes and use the shave/blend toggle to shave ice. It will make about 2 blender containers full of shaved ice. Put the shaved ice in bowls or paper cups. Pour about a tablespoon of one of the Monin syrups used for coffee drinks, like blueberry or cherry, on each serving of shave ice.
For a slushie, put 12-16 oz of a cold beverage like lemonade or Coke in the blender part. Fill the ice container about half-full with ice cubes, and press the margarita button. For best taste, use drinks made with cane sugar rather than high-fructose corn syrup. HFCS leaves an aftertaste, while sugar is cleaner and crisper. If you can get Mexican Cokes at a store that serves that market, or Kosher Cokes during certain times of the year, they're made with cane sugar. Odwalla lemonade is made with cane sugar, too.
For a really fancy margarita, after a lot of experimenting, we reproduced our favorite -- the super-smooth 19th Hole Margarita from the Mexquite restaurant. For 3 margaritas (the capacity of the Bahamas model): put these into the blender part: 4.5 oz Sauza Hornitas Reposada tequila, 4.5 oz orange juice, 3 oz cranberry cocktail juice, 1.5 oz agave nectar syrup, 1.5 oz Gran Gala orange liqueur, juice of 1.5 limes. Fill the ice container to about 2/3 of its max ice line. Press the margarita button, and when it's done (it'll blend twice so wait for it), it's ready to pour...
Customer Review: FINALLY! ...a frozen drink just like the restaurants make. REALLY!
Summary: 5 Stars
FINALLY! ...a frozen drink just like the restaurants make. My wife and eat Tex-Mex 2-3 times per week and LOVE margaritas. Some like them on the rocks, but we like them frozen. The restaurants have the good ones, almost like a slushie, with no chunks of ice in it. So we recently purchased the Margaritaville Bahamas Frozen Concoction Maker on Amazon in hopes of enjoying these drinks at home for much less.
It far exceeds our expectations. It is very well made. (I originally saw this at a store next to "El Paso Chile Company's" frozen drink maker and they don't even compare... the other brand is very cheap) We recently had a large family get-together and EVERYONE loved the drinks. The machine had no problem keeping up... we just ran out of ice!
This machine is a cinch to clean since nothing but ice goes into it. However, I highly recommend wiping the bottom of the chrome ice chute since drink mix can splash up and make it sticky. To blend your drink, you can use the automatic mode or you can use the manual switch for individualized consistency. (Up to shave and down to blend) If blending manually, I recommend blending at least 20 seconds. It makes it much more smooth.
We tried the recipe in the manual, but it was only fair. Here is the recipe we used that had everyone raving at our party:
* 1/2 can of frozen limeade mix.
* 1/2 can of your favorite brand of tequila.
* 2 tablespoons of sugar.
* Splash of Grand Marnier.
* Add shaved ice and blend.
We look forward to trying some of the smoothie recipes. You can make your own Jamba Juice type drinks too!
Customer Review: I'd buy another one
Summary: 5 Stars
I have only had this for a few days, but I've made 4 pitchers of drinks thus far and I am very happy with it. Initially I had trouble putting the ice reservoir in (I had it on backwards), so I called the 877- number that was in the packaging and a cheerful and helpful customer service rep walked me though it in a few minutes. (The compass rose on the ice reservoir lid is supposed to be facing away from you, in the back of the unit). Less than 20 minutes later (the instructions say to leave the ice out of the freezer for 15 minutes before you use it), I was drinking an iced tea slushie. Yes, there's no recipe booklet and you only get a recipe for margaritas in the instructions, but figure that about 2/3 of your drink will be ice, so you need, for example, a very strong iced tea solution - I used about a cup and a half of double-strength (2 teabags per cup of water) iced tea and a full ice reservoir of ice and it tasted really good. By the way, you don't need to fill the ice reservoir to brimming -- at least my experience is that when I do this, I have shaved ice coming out of the top of the blender jar. So I backed off on the ice, and I'm still getting a full pitcher of drinks.
This is far, far better than trying to make this in my regular blender. It shaves the ice and there are no lumps of ice in the resulting pitcher of drinks, so you're not spooning them out the way I did with attempted blender slushies. Slushies do a great job of moderating your temperature and perception of heat and this machine makes terrific slushies, so I'm expecting this to get me through these insanely hot Phoenix summers.
Customer Review: Great Machine! Better Than Just A Blender!
Summary: 5 Stars
I got the Margaritaville DM0500 Frozen Concoction Maker as a gift for Fathers Day. I thought what a waste of money we already have a KitchenAid KSB5WH 5-Speed Blender, White that we use to make margaritas. I was wrong. This machine makes fantastic frozen margaritas. And it makes better tasting frozen drinks, because of the ice shaver, than even a high quality blender like the Kitchen Aid Ultra Power. I love the automatic setting of the Bahama the best. You load your ice and alcohol into the machine and press the green button and it automatically shaves and blends and shaves a little more and blends fast and slow until it makes the perfect margarita. There is also a rocker switch to blend/shave manually but I never use it. I also love all the little design touches on the machine with the little palm trees painted on the machine. I use the machine so much that for Christmas I got the travel bag for the machine. However, as much as I love the machine it's claims of restaurant quality margaritas at home falls short. The only way to create restaurant quality frozen drinks is with a commercial slushy machine like the Bunn 34000.0010 15.1 L Black Gourmet Ice Machine - Model ULTRA-2 PAF. This is what most restaurants use to make frozen concoctions. I know because I rented one for my wedding and investigated buying one. However, they are not practical for home use as they are designed to make frozen concoctions in 20 gallon batches.Customer Review: Great Choice over the DM1000 and DM2000
Summary: 5 Stars
I picked up the DM0500 model after some extensive shopping around for one of the Margaritaville blenders. This one doesn't hold as much ice as the others but it holds enough for one pitcher worth of drinks. It also doesn't have the fancy buttons that the others have that denote "mudslide," "daiquiri," or "Margarita"(I've heard there is little difference in these settings).
That is the main difference between this model and the others. It had the standard shave only/ blend only switch and a start button( more on that later).
The blender itself is very nice it has some great artistic accents like behind the pitcher on the machine is a metal engraving of a palm tree and a sea plane. The construction is easy and it works right out of the box. All you have to do is attach the ice hopper and you're finished.
Some of the negatives though are that the metal ice chute (that's what I call it) shifts up and down so that it fits perfectly and tightly to the pitcher which is nice except that it doesn't seem like it is extremely sturdy but it hasn't broken yet so I guess I should report that if it does.
The Start button is nice it makes a drink about the consistancy of a smoothie from smoothie king. I enjoyed it alot. The ice hopper shreds ice like a dream and the seal on the top if fantastic. I noticed some people complaining that it spilled and I have had no such problem.
I would highly recommend this model over the others for it's reasonable price and great offerings.