Clear Ice comes to Marketplace

I make it a point to listen to the Marketplace on NPR pretty much every morning. I subscribe to the podcast so I always catch it in the morning after it airs on NPR at 6:30 ET the night before. Funny enough, they had an entire segment about Clear Ice!

Cocktail author Jim Meehan recalls working in a bar in Wisconsin in the 1990s. 

“Ice was just a utilitarian thing.” he said. “It was frozen water that was used to keep drinks cold.”

That frozen water was usually cloudy, full of impurities and air bubbles. Around the turn of the century, though, the craft cocktail renaissance began; bars threw out pre-made mixes and started using fresh juice and top-shelf spirits. And crystal clear ice started to appear in cocktails.

The first clear ice cubes were made from an ice sculpting machine, which freezes water in a way that pushes out impurities or air. Meehan was running a bar in New York at the time and he was skeptical.

“I believe the original costing on this ice was around 75c a cube, which is a pretty considerable cost per drink,” he said. The visual appeal, however, eventually won him over.

“It makes a dramatic difference in the drinks,” Meehan said. “One of the things I’ve always said to bartenders, and anyone who would really listen, is that we taste with our eyes first.”

Read more