UltraNurdage

Hamilton-Beach Mixer

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The myriad collection of wires, chips, and fiberoptics between my computer and an arbitrary server on the Internet may be plagued by problems that appear to be Verizon’s fault, but one thing in my apartment works beautifully.

I inherited a 50-year-old (probably more) Hamilton-Beach commercial grade malt mixer from my grandmother via my parents. Supposedly my grandpa, proprietor of Ward Lumber Company in Sioux Falls, SD, received it as a gift for doing some sort of business with an ice cream parlor.

It looks more-or-less like this, its modern descendant, except that the stand is very heavy peach-colored porcelain.

Nothing simpler than a big motor with a switch :o). And best of all, this device makes delicious chocolatey concoctions.

Comments

4 responses to “Hamilton-Beach Mixer”

  1. irilyth Avatar
    irilyth

    I have an instance of the modern descendant (gotten as a birthday present from my sister), and wasn’t entirely impressed with it, although I may not have known how to use it. I tried to use it to make milkshakes, and it seemed not up to the task of dealing with the just-out-of-the-freezer ice cream. Do I need to let it thaw first? Maybe I didn’t use enough milk? Anyway, I may try it again some time; not using it much is also not bad, as “I need to drink more milkshakes” wasn’t really what I had been thinking anyway. :^)

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  2. Nicolas Ward Avatar
    Nicolas Ward

    Both my dad and I have found that you have to spin the cup as it’s running, and that generally does more choppage. Otherwise you might need a spoon to manually target chunks.

    Reply
  3. stormwynd Avatar
    stormwynd

    Mmmm, chocolate. I’m jealous. The closest thing to that which I have is a hand mixer which gets the job done but lacks panache.

    Vintage appliances like this were meant to last. A few years ago, I was helping the biology teachers at my previous school clean out a storage area way in the back of the lab prep room, and we found a 1950’s era blender. Not only did it still work, but it was in near-mint condition. The science department wound up selling it to a collector in the area and using the proceeds to buy an espresso machine, grinder, and membership in an espresso bean of the month club.

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  4. Nicolas Ward Avatar
    Nicolas Ward

    Mmm… bean of the month…

    Reply

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