VTechnique

Ice

Size, dilution and clear ice. Chilling and watering down are one event.

5 min read

Ice is an ingredient, and by volume it's usually the largest one. It does two things at the same time, and they can't be separated: there is no chilling without dilution, and no dilution without chilling.

That rules out a common instinct. You can't shake a drink "just to chill it" and avoid watering it down. The cold comes from the ice melting, because melting is what removes the heat. A shaken drink finishes at around a quarter water by volume, and that water is part of the recipe whether or not the recipe mentions it.

  • Water in20 ml
  • Finished110 ml
  • Strength24.6%

20–25%. Around 30 seconds in a mixing glass with cubed ice.

Open Strength and dilution on its own

Size, and why it matters

Surface area sets the rate. Lots of small pieces melt fast: quick chilling, quick dilution. One big piece melts slowly: slower to chill, and it holds a drink together far longer.

  • Cubes - the default. Shaking, stirring, and filling a highball.
  • One large cube or sphere - for a short drink you'll hold for twenty minutes. Less surface area for the same cooling, so an Old Fashioned doesn't turn to water halfway down.
  • Crushed - fast chilling and heavy dilution, wanted in a Julep, a Mojito, a Caipirinha and most tiki. Never in a shaker. Cubes will do if it is all you have; the drink comes out a little warmer and stronger.

Fill the glass

more ice means less dilutionten minutes after pouringHalf filledFilled to the toppoured to heresame drinkmelts fastmelts slowwarm and waterycold, barely dilutedless ice means each piece takes more heat
The instinct is that less ice is less water, and it is exactly backwards. The cold comes from the melting, so a few pieces have to absorb the whole drink's heat and are gone inside ten minutes, while a packed glass spreads the same job across enough surface that hardly any of it goes. The chapter calls this the least intuitive thing behind a bar, which is the case for drawing it.

Clear ice

Cloudy ice is cloudy because of dissolved air and minerals that get trapped as water freezes inwards from all sides at the same time. Clear ice is frozen directionally - from one side only - so the trapped air is pushed ahead of the freezing front and ends up in the last part to freeze, which you cut off.

  1. Fill an insulated container - a chilly bin with the lid off works - with hot water. Hot rather than cold, because it holds less dissolved air to begin with.
  2. Put it in the freezer uncovered. The insulation on the sides and base forces it to freeze from the top down.
  3. Leave it about 24 hours, until roughly three-quarters frozen.
  4. Tip out the unfrozen water underneath, which is where all the cloudiness has gone, and carve the clear slab into cubes.

Clear ice, in one direction

one direction onlyabout 24 hours123hot water infreezes top downpour off the lastless air in itthree quarterscarve the slabthe sides and base are insulated, so it can only freeze downward
Freezing inwards from every side traps the air where it stands, which is all cloudy ice is. Insulate the sides and base and the only cold face left is the open top, so the front travels one way and drives the air and minerals down ahead of it into the last quarter - the part you tip out rather than the part you serve.

It's cosmetic, and it looks good. Clear ice doesn't melt meaningfully slower than cloudy ice of the same size, whatever people say. The difference is trapped air, not density.