Who Knew? Ice Is the Unsung Hero of Cocktails

"If you've ever sat in a Japanese cocktail bar and watched someone carve an ice gem for your drink, you will know how bewitching really immaculate ice can be. I often think we don't value ice as an ingredient enough. Without it a cocktail is lifeless and flabby - it simply isn't worth it. A well-iced drink tastes electric; it's more exciting to touch. It even sounds better - just think of the rattle of a shaker, or the mouthwatering clink of a G&T."

"Before the birth of the commercial ice trade in the early 1800s, portable ice was a rare treat - aristocrats on the continent would have it brought down from the snow-capped mountains by donkey. It was the American entrepreneur Frederic Tudor who had the bright idea of harvesting ice from the frozen lakes of north America and shipping it to bars from New Orleans and Havana to Calcutta."

"Brits were (and, to my shame as a British drinks writer, still are) rather reluctant to actually add ice to their drinks. But Americans embraced it, to the extent that cocktails made with ice became one of the distinguishing features of a so-called 'American Bar'. One epicure who was most impressed by American ice culture was Charles Dickens. 'Hark!' he wrote in his 1842 travelogue American Notes, after a visit to a bar, 'to the clinking sound of hammers breaking lumps of ice, and to the cool gurgling of the pounded bits, as, in the process of mixing, they are poured from glass to glass.'"

Ice fundamentally elevates cocktails by shaping temperature, texture, sound and visual appeal. Immaculate, well-shaped ice creates a bewitching sensory experience and prevents drinks from tasting lifeless. The commercial ice trade in the early 1800s turned portable ice from a rare aristocratic luxury into a traded commodity. Frederic Tudor pioneered harvesting North American lake ice and shipping blocks globally to bars in New Orleans, Havana and Calcutta. Public displays of pristine ice drew crowds in the 1840s, and Americans rapidly embraced iced cocktails, while many Brits remained reluctant. Charles Dickens celebrated the sounds and spectacle of ice in bars, and by the 1950s domestic ice makers had begun to affect availability.

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