Margaritaville DM0500 Bahamas 36-Ounce Frozen-Concoction Maker
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List Price: Our Price: $144.99 You Save: $85.00 (37%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $105.00 (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: Excellent Value
Summary: 4 Stars
I always assumed that this product would not be worth the money because I already have a good quality blender. However I was never satisfied with the poor quality of frozen drinks my blender produced so I broke down and bought the DM0500. I am now a convert. Like many others have said, what makes this worthwhile over a plain blender is the quality of the shaved ice over blended, crushed ice. I was amazed to realize what a huge difference that made in the consistency of the drink from start to finish. The other advantage is the speed at which you can produce drinks. From the time you pour in the mix to the time you're pouring the drinks is probably not more than 10-15 seconds. And you will never have "rocks" of uncrushed ice left at the bottom of your glass like you can when you make drinks with a blender.
I haven't used any of the other Margaritaville models, and although they may have a few extra bells & whistles i.e., more power, different drink settings, larger ice hopper, etc., I have a hard time believing all those features are worth the additional money. If you only use it occasionally at home and not in a bar where it would get constant use, I don't know what more power would do for you. This model shaves ice perfectly, easily and quickly. A larger ice hopper? This model holds more than enough ice to make a full pitcher of drinks and it only takes seconds to drop in more. Different drink settings? Maybe, but that seems more like a novelty than an advantage. Using the manual settings to shave ice and then mix is simply a matter of flipping the toggle switch up and then down. Need to make it a little thicker? Just flip the switch up and add a little more shaved ice. It just isn't difficult.
I noticed that some people have complained that it leaks when you pour it. It doesn't. If it leaks, you probably didn't assemble the pitcher correctly. Just make sure the rubber ring is on the correct side of the blade assembly. The ring goes between the pitcher and the blade assembly, not under the blade assembly.
Based on the unit itself, I would have rated it 5 stars. The reason I gave it 4 is because I assumed that a drink maker that costs several hundred dollars would include a booklet with lots of drink recipes. It didn't. Then I thought well, surely their website would list tons of recipes. That wasn't the case either. Sorry, I just find that a little disappointing. Still, if you like frozen drinks, you won't be disappointed with this device.
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: Very sharp cutting blade - cut finger on it when trying to clean.
Summary: 3 Stars
I was really excited about using this margarita maker after some of the reviews I'd read. We were disappointed with the actual use of it, especially after I cut my finger badly on the shaving blade and the company expressed no concern about this when I contacted them. The unit is cumbersome. One reviewer was correct to say it's a lot of work to disassemble. It's only really valuable at a party. Even a minimal batch of margaritas in this machine is just too much for me and my wife and not worth the time to clean it. We followed the recommendation of using 2 parts sour (lime juice) to 1 part tequila and cointreau. The result was very watered down. We both had to add more lime juice and it still didn't taste right. Our version on the rocks is perfect. It didn't work well with this machine.
The instructions on disassembling the unit are inadequate. While trying to remove one of the inner pieces for cleaning, I sliced open my finger on the shaving blade, which was out of my sight. It was a shock and I couldn't believe how easy it was to do - and that there was not more detailed mention of this in the manual. The blade is so sharp that the bleeding could only be controlled with substantial and continuous pressure.
I contacted the manufacturer about this but was met with no concern and refusal to have anyone at the upper management level contact me. I wanted to make sure they improved their manual to try to avoid having other people experience my injury, but they weren't concerned about it.
We'll stick with margaritas on the rocks and maybe use this someday if we want to make slurpies for the kids. But I'll be extremely cautious next time when disassembling the unit.
*Update. Finally got a response from someone at the company who addressed our concerns. I upgraded my rating as a result.
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.