Okay... Raspberry Iced Tea This is the double strength recipe. When using, dilute with equal parts of water. 2 quarts of water 1 1/2 cups sugar 1 1/2 cups mashed raspberries (or use frozen whole berries) 5 individual regular tea bags 1/4 cup lemon juice Bring all to a boil. Boil for a few minutes long enough to dissolve the raspberries, if you used frozen mashed berries. If whole berries then mash the berries as it is boiling and once the berries are all mashed then add the tea bags. Turn off the stove. Let mixture steep for an hour or till you remember to come back to the kitchen. Let the whole mixture sit until it is a lot cooler to make it easier to handle when sieving later. So, then once cooled off a little, remove pot from stove, sieve mixture. Refridgerate. Serve later by adding equal amounts of water. The original recipe calls for 4 quarts of water and I figure why store that much in the fridge when I could just dilute it later instead. We used this drink last summer when our daughter was married in our yard. Her colors were red and white. The raspberries give this tea a nice red color and it was a very refreshing drink to serve on a 33C day. Bailey's 1 can condensed sweetened milk (Eagle brand or no name) 1 small whipping cream (1 cup size) 1 1/2 cups rye 2 tsp. instant coffee dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water Mix, enjoy. Be sure to refridgerate 'cause of the cream. Kahlua 1 1/2 cups boiling water 1/8 c. instant coffee 2 cups sugar Bring the above to a boil in a pot on the stove and boil for one minute or two or until syrup. Let cool. Add 1 1/2 cups rye and 2 tsp vanilla. Mix, enjoy. I refridgerate this also, although I do not think I would need to do so. Make these recipes yourself and then tell me what you think of the them... Brenda

Here is Starbucks Frozen Frappuccino recipe and it sounds good enough for me to try too! I love afternoon coffee but when its hot I end up drinking ice tea. Starbucks Frozen Frappuccino Ingredients 3/4 cup double-strength coffee, cold 3 tablespoons granulated sugar 1 cup low-fat milk 2 cups ice Caramel topping, 3 Tbs Whipped Cream Hersheys Chocolate Syrup 3 tbs Directions Make double-strength coffee by brewing with twice the coffee required by your coffee maker: That should be 2 tablespoons of ground coffee per each cup of coffee. Chill before using. To make drink, combine all ingredients in a blender and blend on high speed until ice is crushed and drink is smooth. Pour into two 16-ounce glasses, and serve with a straw. CARAMEL Version: For this version, add 3 tablespoons of caramel topping to the original recipe and prepare as described. Top each glass with whipped cream and drizzle additional caramel over the whipped cream. MOCHA Version: For this version, add 3 tablespoons Hershey's chocolate syrup to the original recipe and prepare as described. Top each glass with whipped cream, if desired.

I'm not a huge fan of the bullet... ok for smoothies...not sure how it would work for crushed ice drinks though. I'm not holding my breath. I didn't know stick blenders worked well for crushing ice... I'm not really seeing that either, but I have to admit that I have never tried it. I do have a Hamilton Beach Icy Treat Slushie/Snow Cone Maker. I think below is the model or close to it. I think it would work well for what you want. You may be able to get a better more expensive one... but we used ours almost every other day last summer for snow cones and I really liked it. Here is a link that might be useful: Icy Treats

We ran into a similar problem when selecting units for our coffee bar (located in our primary suite on the second floor of our house) and a unit for our bar area located in our kitchen. We played around with both drawers and under counter units and ultimately chose the SZ decorator series fridge for our coffee bar and the SZ fridge/freezer combo for our bar in our kitchen. Hubby is excited to finally have a place inside our house to store his ice cream pints which currently live in our garage freezer, lol! We opted not to go with drawers because as mentioned previously, they take a lot more space and we have a fairly small kitchen. Also, the under counter units (not drawers) seemed to allow for a bit more flexibility because in the SZ you can store wine bottles and other large items in the door and smaller items in the shelves/pull-out drawer. Speaking of pull-outs, we chose SZ because we HATED the fixed shelves in the other units (Perlick, ULine, etc.). Not great for aging in place in our forever home, that's for sure (both hubby and I are semi-retired). That said, the lead time for the SZ is like everything these days very long! We ordered our SZ coffee bar fridge on 5/14 and the earliest installation date is late October. We're not starting demo work until August so we're okay with the delay, but that might not work for everyone. If you opt for a SZ under counter fridge I strongly urge going with a certified installer to get the extra year of warranty as they seem to experience more issues than the regular SZ units. Also, when I asked a SZ rep why so many seemed to experience issues he said that you can't let dust/debris get into the machinery at the bottom of the unit.