Source: Extra Home
Have you ever attended a barbecue party held in your parents’ backyard? Perhaps it was a hot summer day sometime in what I would guess is the late 1950s or the early 1960s. The men had their arms rolled up in their shirts, the women in their summer dresses and everyone drank cold beverages and enjoyed the smell of frying meat in the air. There was the neighbor who, of course, had the most striking party gimmick – a cocktail shaker of some kind or something else, like these glass penguins floating in the punch bowl, chilling the drinks and attracting envious looks.
However, those penguins were not only for display purposes. They were permanent ice cubes, a rather unusual feature to the mid-century home bar, a era when cocktail parties were in fashion. This created fascinating little glass figures which contained a liquid that never quite froze and was the height of fashion for anyone who was anybody at parties. When it comes to nostalgia, who can not remember the pleasure of using them, observing the beautiful birds moving in the liquid, a great topic to discuss at a party.
The period after the Second World War was a time of advancements in technology, housing and probably the best of all, entertainment. It was fashionable to have cocktail parties that is the new way of socializing. Now, comes the theme of fun, leisure and luxury, after the black out of the depression and the even bleaker world of the war. This led to the manufacturers coming up with more stylish and unique home bar accessories such as the modern cocktail shaker and other products such as glass penguin coolers whereby one can store his or her drinks and still keep it cold without watering it down.
What made these penguins unique was the fact that they were not only useful; they were enjoyable and stylish. Ideal for the type of outdoor patio functions which had become a fashion in American suburban homes. The drinks could be served, one could get a stirrer, and then just pick a penguin and put it in his or her cocktail. It was a humoristic approach in the world where the appearance was as important as the content.
Things such as these glass penguin coolers represented the change in the American society after the war. The ‘50s and ‘60s was the era of suburbanisation. The sitting of the houses also changed and outdoor entertaining became popular and the front yard was not the place where people would gather to socialize. However, the patios and backyard was the selected location for these fashionable cocktail parties. New designs such as the glass penguin ice coolers were not just a practical improvement; they were a symbol of people’s wish for change, enjoyment and even some humor after the years of struggles.
Essentially, these penguins symbolised a cultural change. They did not need to cut large chunks of ice from frozen lakes as had been done not long before that. However, with electric freezers it became possible to make ice at home and that is why such designs like glass cooler were developed to meet the new needs.
Okay, so of the present we have the ice spheres and the artisanal ice makers, but there is something classic about the glass penguins of old. They remind us of the good old days where a cool party stunt could get you the spotlight at the local barbecue. In their own way, these penguins depict a shift in culture where people of America were trying to introduce fun and sophistication into the mundane aspects of life, for instance, having a refreshing drink in the warm summer night.
That’s why if one day you find yourself in a flea market or you are cleaning up your attic and you come across a box of glass penguin coolers, you should take some time to learn about it. These little figures were not only chilling glasses – they were uplifting people’s moods in the age where people truly knew how to live. And who wouldn’t want that little bit of magic back into their cocktail hour?
These penguins may be small, unpretentious, and yet truly useful; they are a sweet and useful memento of the simple pleasures of life of when the most important thing was to have a drink of water and to have a toy penguin bobbing nearby.