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Technique: Ice!

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      CommentAuthorsylvan
    • CommentTimeFeb 28th 2008
     

    Ah, water in all its forms! As a backcountry skier having lived or visited in various colder climes, I have to say that the variety of textures, colors and shapes that frozen or semi-frozen water can take is mind-boggling. No two snowflakes the same? Well, depending on many factors, no ice or slush or slurry is the same. And a cocktail without ice is what, a punch? Even punch benefits from ice.

    What kinds of ice do you use for various bartending tasks, and how do you get it? What do you shake with, fill with and use in long drinks?

    I know professionally your options are often limited - the machine may only put out one kind of ice, and time is always of the essence. Pre-ground ice doesn't really keep, does it?

    Cocktail books vary widely about whether and when you should use crushed, cracked, ground, or shaved ice. What are these sizes to you, and how do you get them?

    I happen to have some ice trays that make very large ice ‘cubes’; I fill them by hand with filtered water. Ah, the luxuries of home! These are great for whiskey on the rocks and the like, melting slowly. They shake up pretty good, too – with that extra ‘the bejeezus out of it’ I can get them to shatter and get little ice floaties on the drink.

    The times I’ve tried wrapping these cubes in a towel and smacking with a mallet have yielded ice dust, which doesn’t seem right.

    I also have a hand ice grinder that I use for tiki style pursuits. It finishes with little pieces no bigger than a pea, the 'cobble' of Imbibe!'s sherry cobbler. This is what I use to fill a Zombie and the like. Need a straw to drink it, though.

    I’ve run ice through the food processor to make Navy Grog cones à la Donn Beach. And Blair. This yields basically shaved ice, before re-freezing.

    What do you have, and what difference do various ices make to the finished drink? Plenty of Berry's tiki recipes call for shaking with crushed ice and then straining into a glass full of crushed ice. Do you bother with this? Why?

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      CommentAuthorTraderTiki
    • CommentTimeFeb 29th 2008 edited
     

    My ice maker is the typical in-refrigerator crescent style cube maker, and I tend not to shake with whole ice, but I do stir with it. I haven't yet explored the Tovolo Perfect Cube Ice Cube Trays, but since I used crushed ice primarily, it's usually not an issue. In highballs, the crescent ice is used... hmm, suppose I should be horribly embarrassed and get something with nice square cubes. Those trays above aren't too expensive.

    For crushing, I've used my classic Ice-o-Mats with pleasure, but a lot of work. I like being able to adjust between coarse, medium, and fine. For tiki drinks, I tend to pour with the ice, but mostly because the drinks not only can stand up to dilution, but in some cases (Navy Grog, 151 swizzle) require it to reach full complexity. Sort of like drinking a barrel draught single malt (not starting this battle, just opining), where an ice cube allows the notes to spread, instead of stepping over each other in one big blast to the palate.

    Recently I picked up the Waring IC70 Pro Professional Ice Crusher, which has yielded decent results, but doesn't have a Coarse/Medium/Fine changer I liked with the hand cranker. The pieces that come out vary in extremes, from half a crescent to a shred, so I can't endorse it as anything other than making my life a little easier. Tough thing about being a niche market. Does anyone have a mechanical engineering degree in here?

    I used the Oster Classic Beehive Blender to make a very, very fine almost snowy ice to make the Navy Grog cones, but the ice is otherwise not of much use, other than for shaping nifty shapes (Beachcomber's Ice Cove is my next nifty-nifty).

    I suppose it all depends on the dilution ratio, something I've not been terribly obsessed with (as long as I don't get anything watery), but I'd really like to get more information/opinion regarding.

    • CommentAuthordshenaut
    • CommentTimeFeb 29th 2008
     
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      CommentAuthorTraderTiki
    • CommentTimeFeb 29th 2008
     

    David,

    those look real nice, though it was hard enough convincing my wife of an $80 Ice Crusher!

    Apparently, the bathroom and kitchen remodel are higher priority than bar equipment.  Balderdash I say!

    • CommentAuthordshenaut
    • CommentTimeMar 3rd 2008
     

    Kold-Draft is the future of Portland Bartending (maybe they need a local rep) tell your wife get her priorities in order.

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