Out of the ordinary: Fed up with warm beer?

Warm beer at a barbecue got young Kent Hodgson thinking about ways of cooling drinks without lugging around a chilly bin. The 22-year old New Zealand inventor has invented Huski, a device that turns a tepid beverage into a cold drink within seconds. Thanks to the surface temperature of dry ice (-78.5°C), the portable device has a cooling capacity almost four times that of regular ice. What's more, Huski doesn't water down the drink. Huski was among the 30 exhibits from top graduates of Massey University's Auckland School of Design shown during Design Exposure 2007. The inventor says that the Huski is "extremely simple". "You have plastic cooling cells which are pressed down into the dock housing the liquid CO2. The liquid CO2 expands and is pressurized into dry ice in the base of the cooling cells… in a moment. You then pop it into your drink…" Cooling power is almost instant. One canister can fill thirty 330 ml bottles at minimal cost. Mr Hodgson is looking at patenting the Huski, which is expected to retail at around NZD 50.