Question #1: Cooling Drinks

Greetings and thank you for the best podcast ever created! In addition to a wonderful listening experience I also have learned a great deal about how to teach my 4 1/2 year old daughter about science (specific thanks to you Steve and of course Pamela Gay via her own podcast as my daughter at 3 1/2 knew her planets, aware of gravity, etc…) Background for question: I was really charged with cooling drinks for a party at our house and completely dropped the ball (we had all warm drinks in August in DC and folks started arriving–my wife was irked to say the least that I forgot about this). My buddy who had already arrived told me to put the drinks in the freezer and pack frozen veges around the various bottles and cans, which I dutifully did without thinking at first. Question: Did packing frozen veges and such around the drinks so that they made contact with the cans and bottles–as opposed to the drinks simply sitting in an empty rack– make any difference? If so how/why? Isn’t the air in the freezer and all contents more or less EXACTLY the same temperature? Thanks. My apologies in advance but I did not have time to research any answer via the internet. Many thanks in advance. Matt Washington DC