Alcademics.com

A Clear Ice Ball Maker You Can Buy

One difficulty with the Igloo Cooler method of making clear ice is that you get a great big block of ice at the end and have to cut it up into usable cubes yourself. I developed an ice cube tray using plastic boxes that gets the ice into long rectangles, and that's a bit closer to ideal. But if the desired result is round clear ice balls, we need to either produce a mold that fits inside the cooler, or else carve out ice balls afterwards. Well, it turns out that someone produced such a mold to make clear ice... Read more →

Modern Day Pond and Lake Ice Harvests in America

I got it into my head that I want to see a pond or lake ice harvest, despite my contempt for winter. Commercial ice harvests changed the cocktail landscape in America in the early-mid 1800s, allowing for the creation of juleps and cobblers and the popularization of the drinking straw and the cocktail shaker. Today there is still ice harvesting on many American lakes and ponds. As far as I can tell it's more historic reenactment more than practical, with most of the places that have an ice harvest limited to a single day of the year. Most places bring... Read more →

How Machine Ice Is Made

These are a few ways that ice was and is made, which I learned from the awesome book Ice: The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance by Mariana Gosnell. Slushie Method The first way is just like making ice cream the old-fashioned way: snow or cold water mixed with salt can become colder than freezing. So if you put a cup full of water (or ice cream ingredients) and stir the supercooled salt/water mixture around it, the water in the cup can turn to ice. Expansion of Gases As vapor and expands into a large space... Read more →

How Water Freezes

This post is about how a lake freezes, but it should be more or less the same for how an insulated container freezes in a freezer. The information is from the excellent book, Ice: The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance by Mariana Gosnell. Turnover As temperatures lower, the water in a lake "turns over." The top layer of water is heated by the sun during the day and is therefore warmer and lighter than the layers below it. At night without the sun, the cool air above the lake cools the top layer of water,... Read more →

Camper's Cocktails in Every Day with Rachael Ray

I have a two-page spread in the November 2011 issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine. It has a few trends - stuff like fresh ginger and sherry/port in place of vermouth along with some ice cube tricks (recognize that rainbow ice?). Also it has four recipes I developed- a spirit-interchangeble mint buck, a Grapefruit Vesper, a Sparkling Cinnamon Punch, and a port/espresso dessert drink. Nothing ground-breaking but they're all pretty tasty. Run screaming to your local newsstand and pick it up! Read more →

Ice Experimentation in Australia

I recently received an email from Gordon Ryan of the forthcoming bar ReviveR in Gosford, Australia, who has been experimenting with some of the ice concepts posted here on Alcademics. He agreed to let me share his trials with y'all. He says: I’m going to be opening a new bar about an hour north of sydney in a few months time and one of my key things is to get ice that compliments the drinks we’ll be serving. I recently went to Tales and saw both the ice sessions, so picked up some great tips there, but your post on... Read more →

Bartending Techniques Seen at World Class 2011

In what should be my final post about the Diageo World Class Global Finals, I wanted to mention a few cool tricks I saw from bartenders that might be fun to experiment with. (A bubbling dry ice drink from Heinz Kaiser) Henning Neufeld of Switzerland used vodka and ice, instead of water and ice, to cool his cocktail glasses. He said this was because vodka freezes at a lower temperature than water, you could get the glasses colder. Other bartenders used dry ice for this same purpose, but there was a lot of dry ice around. Heinz Kaiser of Austria... Read more →

Tales of the Cocktail Seminar: How to Build a Cutting-Edge Ice Program

Here are notes from the first seminar I've attended at Tales of the Cocktail. How to Build a Cutting Edge Ice Program Christy Pope - Cuff & Buttons, worked at Milk & Honey Chad Solomon - Same as above, but also Pegu Club Richie Boccato - Opened an ice company out of Dutch Kills Joseph Schwartz - opened little branch Notes Glacial ice: because of the pressure from accumulating snow, the ice is compact and squeezes out all the air in it. - Water and Bismuth are only atoms that expand when they freeze. Good Ice vs. Bad Ice Good... Read more →