Where "Esky" Comes From
The name "Esky" comes from "Eskimo" — the people associated with living in icy cold conditions — deemed an appropriate brand name for a portable insulated cooler box designed to keep food and drink cold. The company that introduced it, Malleys (later Francis Malley & Co), launched the first portable Esky model in 1952. The brand name was formally registered in 1961, by which time 500,000 Australian households already owned one.
The brand name genericised so completely that Australians use "esky" for any portable cooler, regardless of manufacturer — much like "hoover" for vacuum cleaners or "doona" for quilts. In American English the equivalent is a "cooler," in British English a "cool box" — both perfectly functional descriptions, but neither as culturally loaded as the Australian term that names the thing after cold-climate people from the other end of the world. The specific ritual of "grabbing an esky" or "chucking something in the esky" is embedded in the outdoor social script.
Source: Wikipedia — “Cooler (container)”
"Load up the esky with stubbies."
How Aussies Actually Use It
"Esky" is the default Australian word for a portable cooler, packed with ice, drinks, and food for barbecues, camping trips, and days at the beach.
It's such an entrenched part of the language that most Australians don't think of it as a brand name at all, simply as the generic word for the object.
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