Selecting cocktail ice for drinks depends on the cocktail and personal preference, but there are some rules of thumb that indicate when cracked ice may be the best choice. Here are a few hints that I look for:
Crushed ice adds a very specific texture to a mixed drink that’s important to preserve. Here are our favorite cocktails that use it: Bramble: This drink starring gin and sweet blackberry liqueur is one of the most refreshing on the planet. Whiskey Smash or Bourbon Smash A classic cocktail that’s tangy and refreshing, starring lemon juice and mint.
Ice wine. The grapes' must is pressed from the frozen grapes, resulting in a smaller amount of more concentrated, very sweet wine. With ice wines, the freezing happens before the fermentation, not afterwards. Unlike the grapes from which other dessert wines are made, such as Sauternes, Tokaji, or Trockenbeerenauslese,...
You've got to hide the Ice like it's an Easter egg. You can't just hand an Ice to someone and force them to drink it. A bro has to put in effort before the other bro has to take a knee.
Rocks Ice. When you're making a drink “on the rocks,” this is the way to go. Often a large ice cube or sphere, Rocks Ice is used for drinks that are primarily spirits based where dilution should be minimized.
Collins spears are an unusual type of ice that you may not have seen around that often but will make your drink look exceptionally cool. This type of ice is shaped like a long, thick block and is most commonly used in cocktails that require a highball, or Collins, glass such as a Gin and Tonic or a Mojito.
Large cubes: Large ice cubes work best in spirit-heavy drinks, such as the Old Fashioned, Negroni, and Manhattan. Big cubes melt slowly and allow you to enjoy the taste of a spirit before it gets watered down.
They also agitate the water while it freezes, allowing all the impurities to rise to the top. This leaves the ice crystal clear and means it has a greater density that slows down the rate of dilution, so you can enjoy an Old Fashioned or Negroni for longer because it will not become over-diluted quickly.
Most commercial icemakers produce three basic types of fragmentary ice: flake, tubular and plate, using a variety of techniques.
Actually, they do, according to bourbon aficionados who buy special trays that make large cubes or balls of ice. The idea is that large cubes melt more slowly than smaller pieces, leaving just the right amount of water in the drink.
1:112:03How to Craft the Perfect Giant Ice Cube for Sipping Bourbon - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipSo you fill it up with hot. Water. The warm water has less suspended. Air in it. Creating. Less ofMoreSo you fill it up with hot. Water. The warm water has less suspended. Air in it. Creating. Less of that cloudiness. Later when they're done freezing.
Crushed ice was born from laziness and impatience, a testament to the overall quality of the product. Its only advantage is that it cools liquid more quickly. There's more surface area, which means your water or soda or coffee or whiskey touches more ice. More contact, more cooling, more quickly.
Giant ice cubes Artisanal cubes, or "hipster" ice, are great for a glass of whiskey or a cocktail.
Bartenders use “so much” ice in your drink, because it's better for your drink and better for you (in terms of enjoyment and taste). If you don't want ice in your drink then you can always ask for no ice. Please remember, however, that less ice will always mean more mixer, not more liquor.
One of the most common ways for bartenders to steal cash from you is by preparing a drink with a substitution. When a customer orders a call drink for a premium brand of liquor, a bartender instead pours a less expensive brand without you or the customer being aware.
The warmer a whiskey is, the more you'll pick up on that “heat”; i.e. dominant alcohol flavors and scents. Ice will take the temperature of the whiskey down a few notches, making it a bit more palatable.
Iced coffee is pretty much what the name says. Literally coffee that's been cooled with a whole lot of ice. This is actually one of the few non-confusing coffee type names out there.
You can make your very own iced coffee, right in your own home. Isn't that nice ?
Iced coffee is great, and it's actually simple to make. You can make it very easily at home, as long as you've got a way of brewing coffee.
Thankfully the concept of making cocktail ice is pretty straightforward, but understanding what you’re trying to achieve when cracking ice is a little more complex. So let me break it down as simply as possible:
Selecting cocktail ice for drinks depends on the cocktail and personal preference, but there are some rules of thumb that indicate when cracked ice may be the best choice. Here are a few hints that I look for:
Thankfully the process of cracking ice is not all that complex, but you can approach it in a couple different ways. If you have an automatic icemaker with in-door dispenser then you’re fortunate, but let’s focus on a couple manual techniques on how to crack ice:
No matter if you’re making cocktails for a dozen people or just a few friends, you can improve your bartending experience and your guests drinks with a few of these tips for cracking ice:
So the next time you’re mixing cocktails at home, consider whether cracked ice may be a better choice than the traditional cube. Hopefully I’ve given you some useful tips to make it easier.
The recipe for a good transfusion cocktail is fairly straight forward. Golf's mightiest cocktail consists of only 4 ingredients: ice, vodka, ginger ale and grape juice. This bare bones golf drink recipe also means:
To get your transfusion just right, grab a glass and follow these 4 steps:
Garnish with a lime wedge if you will, and there you have it. So, next time you're out on the course or kicking a few back at the 19th hole, be sure to order a golf drink with grape juice, baby - the transfusion. We bet you'll love it so much it'll be your go-to cocktail at the golf club moving forward.
Here's how it works: One person hides a bottle of Smirnoff Ice that they know their target will find. When the unlucky chump does find it, they're required to get down on one knee and chug the entire bottle.
BrosIcingBros.com doesn't even exist anymore, but when it launched, it served as a hub for videos and photos of people getting Iced. Most of the first Icing sightings happened at frat houses.
No one can pinpoint exactly when Ice-ing someone became a "thing," but if you went to college in the late aughts, you were likely witnessing the beginning of it. Throughout 2010, The New York Times, Time, and other publications wrote about the prank.
In a video titled " HOW TO ICE A BRO " posted to YouTube in June 2010, they're laid out.
The vodka brand introduced Ice in 1999. As the label reads, it's a "malt beverage," meaning it's brewed like a beer and doesn't have any vodka in it.
Smirnoff never blatantly admitted their Ice was for women, but many people had the thought. Some people credit "bros" for the drink's popularity today, though.
So they say — but the brand did have a hand in taking down BrosIcingBros.com. Shortly after Icing took over college campuses, the site was removed, and Smirnoff gave a statement to AdAge.
Don’t want to make crushed ice? You can also use a crushed ice tray. Here’s the one we use: Mini Ice Cube Tray. Here are the pros and cons to this handy invention:
Once you’ve made your crushed ice, you can store it in the freezer until you need it. Place it in a sealed container until you’re ready to use it. If you need to, break up any chunks that have frozen together. Then you’re ready to use it in cocktails and mixed drinks!
There are lots of cocktails that call for crushed ice: and we’ve got recipes for all of them! Crushed ice adds a very specific texture to a mixed drink that’s important to preserve. Here are our favorite cocktails that use it:
Here’s how to crush ice: the easy way! It makes the perfect powdery crushed ice for cocktails and mixed drinks.
Love making cocktails at home? Here are a few more cocktail skills to master:
Meet Sonja and Alex Overhiser: Husband and wife. Expert home cooks. Authors of recipes you'll want to make again and again.
There are indications that frozen grapes were used to make wine in Roman times. Pliny the Elder (AD 23 – 79) wrote that certain grape varieties were not harvested before the first frost had occurred. The poet Martial recommended that grapes should be left on the vine until November or until they were stiff with frost.
Casks of wine outside The Ice House Winery. The winery is one of many wineries in the Niagara Peninsula that produces ice wine.
Ice wine grapes freezing over at a Niagara-based winery. Most ice wine producing countries require the grapes to be frozen naturally in order to receive its designation.
Typical grapes used for ice wine production are Riesling, considered to be the noblest variety by German winemakers; Vidal, highly popular in Ontario, Canada; and the red grape Cabernet Franc.
Even though it is normal for residual sugar content in ice wine to run from 180 g/L up to as high as 320 g/L (with a mean in the 220 g/L range), ice wine is very refreshing (as opposed to cloying) due to high acidity. (The titratable acidity in ice wine is almost always above 10 g/L.)
The research team at St. Andrews University tested 13 common beverages to see how they impact hydration. Here’s what they found, ranked from most hydrating over a four-hour period to least.
But here’s where it gets tricky: Beverages with more concentrated sugars, such as fruit juices or colas, are not necessarily as hydrating as their lower-sugar cousins.
Alcohol acts as a diuretic, which causes you to pass more urine, so when it comes to alcoholic beverages hydration will depend on a beverage’s total volume. “Beer would result in less water loss than whiskey, because you are ingesting more fluid with beer,” Maughan said. “Strong alcoholic drinks will dehydrate, dilute alcoholic drinks will not.”