The Simple Tip To Make Your McDonald's Drink Last Longer

What McDonald's run would be complete without a refreshing soft drink? While part and parcel to a satisfying fast food experience, some customers are left frustrated by the ratio of ice to beverage found in their cups. Ice takes up precious room in a drink, which means you may end up at the bottom of the cup before you even make it home. To avoid this common complaint, request your beverage sans ice the next time you visit McDonald's.

Removing ice from the equation leaves a lot more room for the soft drink of your choice, whether that's Coke, Fanta, or Sprite. Forgoing ice in a McDonald's drink also prevents the beverage from getting watered down, which is bound to happen if you have a cup full of ice. In the event that you simply must drink your beverage chilled, you can request light ice instead, which still leaves more room for your drink. However, McDonald's employs some nifty tricks to ensure beverages are chilly right out of the dispenser.

You may have heard that soft drinks from McDonald's taste better than the same beverage consumed from a can or bottle (or even another fast food fountain drink dispenser). McDonald's acknowledges this long-held belief on its website and subsequently offers a few concrete reasons why soft drinks are simply tastier at the chain. The fast food establishment insists on using filtered water in its beverage dispensing machines, which removes impurities that might negatively alter flavor. McDonald's also carefully balances the portion of water with its soda syrup to ensure the best possible taste.

As for temperature, both the syrup and water are "pre-chilled" prior to flowing into the fountain drink equipment. Additionally, an internal cooling mechanism inside the machine keeps soft drinks at the perfect temperature before they're actually dispensed to customers. When combined, these innovative techniques result in an impressively refreshing soda that is perfectly chilly, even without the presence of ice.

Like the majority of fast food hacks, not everyone will have the same experience when asking for soft drinks without ice. Consider that McDonald's and most other fast food establishments use special markers on cups to designate how full a beverage should be. That means staff will fill the cup to the specific line, regardless of whether you get ice in your drink or not. And as one customer learned at Wendy's, asking for no ice can seriously backfire, leaving your cup looking conspicuously empty.

A Reddit thread offers further insight into fast food beverage practices. Along with markers on cups, some chains also utilize special controls on the dispenser itself to dole out a specific amount of liquid in each cup, mainly to make life easier for staff. While automating beverage dispensing is important for controlling inventory and keeping costs manageable, it also allows workers to efficiently fill beverages without any concerns about overflows. In this case, asking for no ice may not get you a greater volume of delicious soft drink, but it can allow you to enjoy the beverage without it being watered down.