More Fun with Ice: The Time Bomb
October 28, 2010
The fun with ice continues! In ongoing experiments freezing things in ice, I decided to try freezing food coloring in the middle of an ice cube. Then when the ice melts, the coloring will release and change the drink.
Click on the link below to see how I did it and what happened.
The first step was to make perfectly clear ice. Then I heated the stubby end of a bar spoon in a pot of boiling water and kept plunging it into the ice until I made a tunnel.
Then I added several drops of food coloring. After I let that freeze for a few hours, I added a couple drops of water and let that freeze. I then added more water to top it up and seal the cube.
Then it was time to add the time bomb to a beverage. I just used water for this first demonstration.
The ice melted a bit then turned sideways.
After a few minutes, the dramatic leak began.
And finally, all was black.
So, this little trick works fairly well. Drink fast or your cocktail turns black!
The ice I use to fill the hole after adding the food coloring is very cloudy, but I don't think it's so terrible.
This method could be used to add other things to drink beyond color: perhaps it could be filled with bitters, or citrus oil, or absinthe to change the flavor of a drink mid-way through it.
An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.
At teardrop there was a drink served with a tepache ice cube, if I recall. It kept changing the flavor of the drink, was very nifty, and delicious.
Posted by: Trader Tiki | October 28, 2010 at 09:08 AM
This is excellent! I will definitely be giving this a try.
Posted by: Andy | October 28, 2010 at 12:40 PM
Awesome idea! Would be fun to double the dye. Do the above, but rather than cap with water, do another dye and cap with thin water. if you use red first and cap with yellow you could get a nice color shifting from yellow melting first then the red. Your drink fades yellow... orange... red.
Posted by: TikiGeeki | October 28, 2010 at 01:25 PM
Ha! Great idea!
Posted by: Camper English | October 28, 2010 at 01:27 PM
Sheer genius, Camper...!
Posted by: Beachbum Berry | October 29, 2010 at 08:04 AM
I had a drink that was filled with Cynar ice cube bombs. My Manhattan turned into a Little Italy over time.
Posted by: Frederic | October 29, 2010 at 08:46 AM
I was trying to come up with a drink that would eventually change to a different color and had a hard time getting it to work. This is brilliant! I look forward to using this method in the future. Thanks a lot.
Posted by: Aaron | October 29, 2010 at 11:44 AM
This is pretty amazing. How difficult would it be to mass produce this??? And by mass produce I mean making 20 to 30 per night???
Posted by: Dr. Blaze Hampton | October 29, 2010 at 04:08 PM
Very sexy. I bet you could fashion a jig that sits in a tray of water that you're freezing into cubes. Like a grid of fingers that sticks into each. Then you'd just have to freeze the clear cubes, take them off the jig, then fill them and refreeze. Easy mass production, scalable to infinity per night with minimal effort. No fussing with hot bar spoons. After all, tunneling through ice with a spoon is for stranded arctic explorers, not cocktail gurus.
Posted by: Colin Gore | October 29, 2010 at 09:40 PM
This is excellent! :) I also have to try this out. An idea of changing the flavor(s) of a drink after serving it is pretty cool :)
Posted by: Dejan /Lounge Area | October 31, 2010 at 03:55 AM
Brilliant. I like Frederic's idea of the liquor filled ice bomb, to make two cocktails in one. My thought is to fill one with Violette, so you can make an Aviation both ways.
Posted by: Louis Anderman | October 31, 2010 at 08:14 PM
Yes! The Aviation two ways. Or a Sloe Comfortable Screw with Up Against the Wall ice!
Posted by: Camper English | October 31, 2010 at 08:30 PM
Hope this isn't a metaphor for the human heart.
Posted by: Sparky | November 01, 2010 at 08:25 AM
Yeah, if you think along the lines of cocktails that vary only by the addition of one or two ingredients, the possibilities are endless. A Whiskey or Hollands Gin cocktail that morphs into an Improved, or an Absinthe and Violette bomb to turn a Martini into an Atty?
Posted by: Louis Anderman | November 01, 2010 at 09:58 AM
wow, I absolutely love this incredible idea! looks so uncanny
have a nice time,
Paula
Posted by: Paula | November 02, 2010 at 01:58 AM
This is a fun technique for garnishing too - plunge a hot poker into the ice cube, and then stick in some crazy garnish atop a skewer. Did you have trouble making the hole in the ice? It always took me a while...
Posted by: Rick | November 03, 2010 at 06:27 AM
Yes it took many reheatings to get the hole that deep. I was thinking one of those pokers for a wood-burning kit would be a good tool for this task.
Posted by: Camper English | November 03, 2010 at 10:48 AM
Great idea!
Use it for "Party Roulette." Make an equal number of ice bombs as there are guests. One of the ice bombs will have a suprise inside. Dole out the ice bombs and wait for the fun to begin! Make the ice bombs using opaque water to hide which "bomb" is armed then load one ice bomb with extra bitter lemon, hot sauce, etc. Sit back, wait for the ice to melt and then wait for the reaction of the "bombed." Or arm all of the ice bombs and the first peson to make a face loses. I can't wait to try this! I'll either be the hit of the party or my family will never ask me to Thanksgiving dinner again!
Posted by: IchabodCrane | November 03, 2010 at 11:17 AM
Then it would make sense to make it with Russian vodka, so it's a Russian Roulette round of drinks.
Posted by: Camper English | November 03, 2010 at 11:22 AM
I seen some icecube trys that were shot glassees. You could make the shot glass out of ice then fill with the color or what ever freez then add more water and you would not have to try and poke hloes.
Posted by: jessica | November 04, 2010 at 07:33 AM
That is a great idea with the shot glass ice trays. And this is a great idea with the dye.
I'll have to try it when the family comes for a visit. They are convinced I have to much idle time on my hands. This would prove the point, but in a very cool way.
Posted by: Susan Williams Designs | November 24, 2010 at 06:34 PM
I always like to come up with movie-themed cocktails for Oscar night. This strikes me as good inspiration for an "Inception" cocktail...a cocktail within a cocktail within a cocktail to match all the stacked dreams in the movie. Maybe an Aviation that gets a subsequent hit of Creme de Violette, that then gets a second kick of food coloring to turn it deep purple?
Posted by: Mark | February 11, 2011 at 01:35 PM
I have been working on making clear ice balls using the mold (though not quite there yet), but saw this post and tried a few with food colouring inserted.
I used a portable drill to make the hole - takes about three seconds. Let the food colouring freeze well first before covering with cold water to reseal the ice ball - otherwise the water will melt the food colouring pocket and you'll have a coloured ice plug that starts melting as soon as the ice ball hits the drink.
Here is the video for anyone interested:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSho59gexHg
Posted by: Tim | July 03, 2011 at 05:05 AM