The Margarita Machine

I decided to make this on a whim one day when I heard garbage disposal and Margarita blender in the same sentence.

After getting permission from the wife to spend some money on a useless project, I got started. What I ended up with has been a lot of fun at several parties, and overall has been worth the effort to build. Margaritas are the only drink I have made in this machine since I built it, but it should work equally well with any frozen drink. (I am not sure whether to try Daiquiris next or Pina-Coladas).

The Good:

> While not silent, it is much quieter than your typical blender.

> It is fast. If you have the recipe down for quantities (including ice volume), start to finish is less than a minute and a half (well, maybe 3 minutes)!

> It is a fantastic conversation piece. (Just remember to give credit here for the design.)

> One batch serves a lot of people (or a smaller number of very thirsty people.)

> It can make up to about 4 gallons (final volume) of margarita at a time.

The Bad:

> It really does not work well for less than 1 1/2 to 2 gallons (final volume) of drink.

> It is pretty expensive for a blender. As built, this unit cost about $300 and 10 Hours of labor.

Building it:

The two primary pieces for making this are an Igloo 5 gallon cooler/drink dispenser and a garbage disposal.

I am sure you have seen the Igloo Cooler/dispenser in use by road crews or the like, and may have one or two around the house. In my case, I had two of these, one within easy reach, and no expected need to use it in the foreseeable future.

The garbage disposal was the item I expected to have to pay some money for (and did!) I wanted a brand new unit, since it was going to be processing drinks which many people (including me) would be drinking from. I intended to get the least powerful unit I could find, since the power of the disposal unit ends up heating the drinks. I went to Home Depot, and found their display of InSinkerator units, and found out that I had to buy the one horsepower unit to get all stainless construction in the working parts. This may not be a real issue, but I do not like the idea of having bits of cadmium plating in my drink, whether I can see them or not. As a result, I bought the Insinkerator 777SS disposal unit for around $200.00 (well, that is what I remember paying).

The output of the disposal unit is a 1 1/2 inch waste fitting. It turns out that many of the plastic trap units for home sinks are made of PVC now, and that an extension tailpiece (with a simple flange at one end) works to connect to the disposal unit real well. The piece that is provided with the unit makes an immediate 90 degree turn, which does not work well with the design I was working on, and as it adds another turn that is not necessary, it adds unnecessary friction heating that is also unnecessary. (Honestly, the difference in heating is almost certainly negligible, but I occasionally think in these terms when I am planning.)

So, once I had the basic parts in hand, the construction begins:

Picture 1 shows the basic Igloo 5 gallon drink cooler/dispenser, the hole saw (3 1/2”) and the disposal flange parts.

Picture 2 shows the bottom of the cooler, with the disposal flange parts and the hole saw in the upper right corner of the picture.

Picture 3 shows the cooler ready to be drilled

And picture 4 shows the hole drilled in the base of the cooler

Pictures 5-10 show the assembly of the flange to the cooler.

Putting the disposal sink flange into the cooler turned out to be a bit of a challenge. The manufacturer was obviously thinking in terms of mounting the flange on a sink that was no more than 1/4 inch thick. Despite this, they were very generous in the depth of the flange they provided, but almost not generous enough. The bottom of the cooler is over an inch thick, so the base has to be compressed a bit to get the flange to fit properly. To this end, I built a Flange tool (for want of a better description) to compress the cooler foam core while installing the disposal flange.

The tool is made up of two pieces of nominally 3/4" wood. The smaller piece can be drilled out of a piece of wood with the same drill used to drill out the bottom of the cooler. The larger circle should be 3/4" to 1" larger in diameter (actually, I used a 4” hole saw for the larger piece). It has to seat on the flange, but not extend beyond the flange edges.

The two wood disks are screwed together through the centers so they do not shift. Bolt hole location are on a diameter, set as wide apart as possible without having the bolts hit the inner diameter of the flange. 3/8" carriage bolts were used.

This shows the Flange tool set in the disposal flange.

The flange is set with plumber's putty.