My search ends...Happily!

I've spent a lot of time searching for a great blender. Including standing in return lines and dumping lots of carafes full of clumpy stuff down my sink drain. I think that my search has finally come to a happy end.

If you've found this review, you might understandably assume that Waring makes twenty different models of blenders. They have a habit of assigning confusing model numbers to different color blenders. I suspect this is done to avoid direct comparison shopping between competing retailers. As far as I can tell, they make three basic models. The plastic bottomed, glass carafe model with removable blades, the all-glass, fluted carafe model with non-removable blades and a commercial blender with a one horsepower motor. The first two models which share a common motor are also available with stainless steel carafes under even more numbers.

This review deals with the all-glass carafe unit.

I purchased this blender after returning a KitchenAid blender that I've also reviewed here. Without repeating the entire missive, I found that the KitchenAid just wouldn't emulsify solids properly due to the design of the blades and wide base carafe. That was one of the main reasons I chose the Waring as a replacement. The narrow bottomed, clover shaped carafe seemed to be a better approach after witnessing the problems with the KitchenAid. I was tempted to buy the model with the removable blades, but after reading that clean up is so easy just by adding water with a few drops of detergent and blending for a moment, I opted for the all-glass model.

I'm glad I did. I've found the fluted glass model to be the most visually appealing appliance in my kitchen. I'd like to call it a retro design, but since this same unit has been in production since my grandmother's days it's been around long before the term "retro" was coined! The utter simplicity of the Waring at first gave me pause to consider the lack of twelve different speeds along with separate touch sensitive buttons for pulse. I can tell you that high/low toggle switch is all you will ever need speed-wise! When pulsing, flipping it on and off actually works better than the gradually increasing speed feature on the KitchenAid blender due to the sudden shock verses the slow start-up.

My first test of the Waring was making a chocolate banana milkshake. I poured the milk in first, then the hard ice cream and finally a peeled banana on top. I completely expected to have to blend it for a few seconds and then stop to mash the banana and ice cream down into the blades. Nope. It pulled the banana down like a wood-chipper shredding a log! I didn't have to touch it until it was done. I also tried it with some firmer chunks of fruit. They were liquified in short order. I don't have any way of comparing that is accurate, but it seems to me that the remaining milkshake stays colder in the thick glass carafe than in the polycarbonate plastic of my original Oster blender. Overall I am very pleased with the performance of the Waring.

Now for the negatives. I did find the Waring to be somewhat louder than the KitchenAid. If it were running all day long this might be a factor, but I didn't find it to be too annoying. The lid did leak just a bit when I had the carafe filled near the three quarters mark. I found that the weight of my hand on it was enough to seal it. There was a slight odor of ozone when I first ran it. It reminded me of the electric trains I had as a kid. I assume it was the brushes in the motor being broken in. It went away after a few uses.

Despite a few quirks that don't seem to detract from the charm of this blender, I have to say that I like this Waring! It does everything well and as an added bonus it seems that everyone who visits my kitchen has a recollection of a blender that sat in their mother's or grandmother's kitchen when they were young. I expect that someday, someone will have a fond remembrance of this blender!