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Chill your refreshments in style with our top picks. 30 qt cooking pot
Whether you're polishing the Champagne flutes to pop a special bottle of bubbly this season or breaking out your favorite wine glasses to enjoy a crisp glass of rosé, a drink nearing room temperature does not compare to one that's properly chilled. The best ice buckets keep your favorite drinks cold, plus beautiful stainless steel, mixed metal, and marbled vessels add a decorative touch to dinner parties, holiday meals, and so much more.
Drawing on our industry knowledge, expert insights from sommeliers, and the ice buckets we use often at home, we curated this list with size, style, material, and insulation in mind. From traditional ice buckets to large beverage tubs, read on for the best ice buckets for any hosting occasion.
The watertight, stainless steel lining will keep ice cubes frozen for a long time.
Due to its hand-hammered construction and mirrored finish, you'll need to hand wash and avoid citrus-scented detergents.
This ice bucket, though small, has a hand-hammered design and an elegant mirror-polished finish that make it a top choice on our list. Stainless steel lining keeps this ice bucket well insulated, and its size and swing handle makes it easily carryable from indoor to outdoor spaces when entertaining. It holds a decent amount of ice if all you need are a few cubes per drink at small gatherings and celebrations. If you're looking for a larger size, you can purchase the matching Bash Silver Beverage Tub for an upgrade.
If you're making specialty ice from a nugget ice maker or undercounter ice maker for a cocktail party, we recommend you keep an ice bucket like this one close by for your guests so their drinks stay perfectly chilled.
It looks beautiful on a bar cart and makes a great gift.
It might sweat, which isn't ideal for wood surfaces.
If you're looking for a specifically midcentury modern or vintage-style ice bucket, glass and brass are the way to go. Pottery Barn's Bleecker collection comes in antique gold or blackened bronze finishes, and beyond the ice bucket itself (which comes with stainless steel serving tongs), there's a full barware collection if you're the type of host that loves to coordinate serving sets.
This mixed metal ice bucket has a gorgeous mid-century design, plus a snug-fitting lid to keep ice colder for longer.
At just under $300, this pick is a splurge.
Whether you're hosting family and friends for the holidays or looking for something sleek to keep next to your whiskey decanter, this mixed-metal pick from Arhaus will shine on any midcentury bar cart. It's made from stainless steel with a beautiful metallic gold finish, and its 9-inch depth makes it large enough to hold plenty of ice for a cocktail party.
This ice bucket combines form and function, and it would also make a very special gift for the cocktail lover in your life. Worth the splurge? Absolutely, in our opinion, thanks to its quality construction and unique design.
It comes in both brass and silver finishes, and it's double-walled for hours of insulation.
It's hand-wash only which might be ungainly in the sink.
For sparkling wine lovers, a great Champagne ice bucket is well worth the investment. This hammered-stainless steel bucket is double-wall insulated to keep things chilled for hours and can accommodate your favorite Champagne without breaking a sweat (so to speak). Choose between classic silver or antique brass finishes, and use the handles to easily move it between rooms while the party carries on at home.
The flip-top lid and garnish tray are the way to go for enjoying craft cocktails at home. It's less expensive than ice buckets made of stainless steel.
It's small, so you may need to refill it depending on the size of your gathering.
Known for its accessible cookware, OXO sells an affordable ice bucket that houses enough ice cubes for a few cocktails as well as garnishes. This small bucket only holds ice (as opposed to larger ice buckets that can hold bottles), but it also comes with a garnish tray for maraschino cherries, lime wedges, and anything else you'd pop on the end of your cocktail pick, making it a great choice for parties.
Double-walled construction keeps ice frozen, and the practical flip-top lid maximizes its insulation, which also helps to keep the garnishes fresh. The included tongs are a bonus.
This is a well-priced, well-made ice bucket that will get the job done.
This ice bucket doesn't have a handle and is hand wash only.
This stainless steel ice bucket from S'well has a sleek rounded shape, fun marbled exterior, and simple lidded design that earn it a top spot on our list. It's double-wall insulated, so you don't have to worry about ice melting too quickly and the lid keeps ice frozen longer. Its generous 67-ounce capacity is ideal for serving ice cubes or chilling a single bottle of wine, plus it comes with a set of easy-to-use tongs for seamless serving. It's also top-rack dishwasher safe for easy cleanup at the end of the night.
The large capacity of this ice tub makes it perfect for hosting.
It's not quite as large as a classic beverage tub.
This is more of a tub than a bucket, but it's the kind of vessel you need for chilling enough refreshments for a larger group. A beverage tub beckons for barbeques and pool parties, and this one can hold two bottles of wine at once. The dimensions of this tub make it great for chilling even large bottles, and a drain grate at the bottom ensures you won't be dripping water across your table when you pull a bottle out to pour. With a large handle across the top, it's easily moveable when you want to take it elsewhere or top off the ice.
The well-made swivel handle makes this ice bucket easily portable for refilling.
It's not double-wall insulated.
We love the design and clean lines of this ice bucket, which juxtaposes stainless steel with an acacia wood lid. An interior drain keeps ice away from water, so it's always easy to snag cubes with the included tongs. It's large enough for a single bottle of wine and makes a great gift on its own or paired with Fortessa's premium bar tools set.
This bucket is rugged, easy to transport, and it's available in seven colors.
A bit pricey for an outdoor ice bucket.
We love that you can toss this durable Yeti ice bucket in the trunk of your car and hit the trails, toting cold beverages with ease. This ice bucket can hold more than six cans of beer or three standard-size bottles of wine — or better yet, a few cans or a bottle of wine paired with your favorite chilled snacks. The double-walled vacuum insulation lining will keep your drinks chilled beneath the honeycomb lid, and it's easily packable thanks to its stackable design and clever rubber guard on the bottom to prevent scratches.
In our Yeti Rambler Beverage Bucket test, we found that it kept our beverages cold for more than 24 hours with the lid on, and slightly less with the lid off. We also appreciated the rubber guard on the bottom of the bucket, which prevented our furniture from getting scratched. It's a practical design, and we found the size and weight (it weighs 6.7 pounds) to be perfect for small outdoor get-togethers with friends.
There are many factors to consider when purchasing an ice bucket, with the most important being usage. Will you use it only for ice or does it need to double as a wine chiller? And if you regularly host large gatherings, just how many beverages do you want your ice tub to hold? Will it be used on the go or at home, indoors or outdoors? Dimensions also tie into your primary purpose for purchasing an ice bucket. If it's just ice you need, go for one of the smaller offerings around six to seven inches wide. For tub-style ice buckets or for chilling Champagne, you'll want widths that are in the 10- to 20-inch range.
The majority of well-made ice buckets consist of stainless steel. We've included a few materials on this list, such as Yeti's heavy-duty polyethylene plastic, but unless you have a specific niche purpose that would require an ice bucket that isn't made of stainless steel, we suggest going with this classic material for durability and its ability to keep iced-down drinks cold.
Most recommendations on this list are insulated, as are nearly all ice buckets on the market. The large-scale beverage tub isn't insulated because it holds such a massive amount of ice that you don't really need it to be. In any case, double-walled insulation is the standard for keeping ice frozen and drinks cold.
Many of the ice buckets on our list will keep ice frozen for up to 24 hours, with insulation and lids factored into this timespan. As our best practices for ice buckets state, you can also add in some water to eliminate the air pockets when drinks accompany ice in the bucket — this also speeds up the chilling process if you are trying to cool your beverages quickly.
For white, rosé, and sparkling wines, the temperature should be about 45 to 50°F once chilled. Of course, you'll want to let the wine sit tight in the glass for a minute or two to take the edge off the chill and allow the aromas to blossom, but generally, you want to be drinking white, rosé, and sparkling wines after they have been chilled for at least 10 minutes. Also, note that wines should chill in an ice bath (ice and water) and not just ice.
Yes, you can use an ice bucket to chill red wine. The main reason for doing so would be if the wine is too far above cellar temperature when you want to serve it. Cellar temperature is 55 °F, and red wine is most enjoyable at roughly 65°F. If your wines are not cellared or may have warmed up a bit too much while sitting out, you'll want to chill them back down to roughly 65°F before serving (or just under room temperature). An ice bucket can help bring down the temperature. Not to mention, certain types of wines taste best when slightly chilled, such as Beaujolais Nouveau or a domestic version of a carbonic maceration red wine.
vintage kitchen items Years of tasting and writing about food, wine, and spirits guide Melissa Vogt's research. As a tourist, Vogt seeks out the very best in local food and drink, and she's well acquainted with where to find good libations and eats in her hometown of Santa Rosa, Calif. Read more of her writing on her website and in Napa Valley Life, Very Napa Valley, and Wine Country This Month. As part of her research, Melissa tapped into her network of northern California sommeliers to discuss ice buckets, which are the go-to for the drinks industry.