Ninja Slushi Twist puts dual frozen drinks to the test in heat wave

New York City officials said July 1 that holiday-weekend temperatures could feel as hot as 112 degrees, prompting extra cooling centers, longer outdoor pool hours, 21 COOL vans and more than 600 street outreach workers. The heat wave later left three New Yorkers dead from heat-related illness, and city officials have said roughly 500 residents die from heat-related illness each year. Against that backdrop, a countertop slushie machine starts to look less like a novelty and more like a small adaptation to a hotter daily life.

SharkNinja launched the original Ninja SLUSHi in July 2024, saying the machine was developed over 16 months and could make frozen beverages in about 15 minutes. The company called it a “viral sensation,” and that momentum now sits behind a two-track product strategy: the Ninja SLUSHi Twist, launched in May 2026, for households that want two different drinks at once, and the Ninja SLUSHi XL, introduced this year for larger single-flavor batches.

The Twist is built around that new domestic reality. It has two 48-ounce vessels that can run at the same time and is marketed to make 10-plus drinks per side, whether the batch is a mocktail, cocktail, frappé, frozen margarita, frosé or milkshake. In a city where Central Park could see its first 100-degree day since 2012, the appeal is straightforward: a frozen drink without a walk through punishing heat to a corner store, bar or beachside stand.

SharkNinja says the SLUSHi XL offers twice the capacity and twice the speed of the original machine, signaling a market that is splitting between bigger gatherings and households that want different drinks ready at the same moment. That product spread fits a larger economic shift already visible in the city’s heat response. As officials opened cooling centers and extended pool hours, they were also acknowledging that comfort is increasingly being managed one room, one appliance and one family schedule at a time.

The slushie machine is part of that adjustment. Extreme heat is pushing more spending into the home and changing expectations about what it takes to get through a summer day, especially when going outside itself has become the inconvenience households are trying to avoid.