It didn’t dawn on me until a couple of weeks ago just how cool large cocktail ice cubes really are. My sister-in-law had stopped by for an afternoon cocktail on the Patio, and immediately zeroed in on the ice: “where did you get these?” she said in a slow, deliberate voice, with the accent on these. Now Pat is a pretty worldly girl and usually in-the-know.
I’ve thought my large ice cubes were pretty awesome since I bought a King Cube silicon ice tray 4 years ago. But Pat had never seen these? I knew right then it was my duty to spread the word on the perfect cocktail ice-cube.
I first saw large cocktail ice cubes on an episode of Bar Rescue; they were round or sphere shaped and John Taffer extolled on the benefits of large ice cubes: they melt slower with less dilution; this rescued Bar was going to receive a regular delivery of the cutting edge ice.
A few years later I was wandering through a kitchen store at the mall one afternoon with a friend and I saw them. This store had both cubes and spheres. I opted for the cubes because the silicon tray was cobalt blue which matched the accent color in my kitchen. And I loved them!
I eventually received a sphere ice tray as a gift and I love to mix them up: I’ll use one ice sphere in a rocks glass and a couple of ice cubes in a tall cocktail.
So, Sphere or Cube? For the casual sipper, it probably won’t matter what shape your ice is, but for the wanna-be science geek in all of us I did scan a few posts online and found a common thread: cubes cool a drink faster and to a lower temp but spheres melt slower and chill your drink with less dilution.
After 4 years of diligent ‘experimentation’, I concur that there is less dilution with both the large sphere and cube ice which is very desirable. As far as the temperature of the drink, I honestly would not be able to tell which shape makes your drink colder and unless you’re a schooled purist, a few degrees probably won’t matter.
The silicon ice trays make it a breeze to pop your ice out, they are durable and easy to clean. To make the sphere shaped ice, you fill the mold with water to the ‘fill’ line marked on the top half (to allow for expansion). Once the ice is frozen, separate the mold and ‘pop’ the ice out.
A few days before a party, I’ll make a few bags of both sphere and cube ice for cocktails.
And don’t stop with ice cubes, you can freeze:
- leftover wine for future cooking
- leftover homemade stock & broth
- leftover Pesto
- preserve leftover herbs by freezing them in olive oil
- make ‘coffee’ ice cubes
- even freeze leftover caramelized onions
Before you throw out leftovers, ask yourself if you can freeze them for future use.
These jumbo ice cubes are just … Fun! You can get trays in all shapes and colors. I think I paid $8.99 for my first tray of 4 cubes. My sister-in-law, Pat, found them recently at a Job Lot for $2.99 and was so excited she picked me up a tray of ‘Ice Shots”. Yes, they’re exactly what the name implies; little frozen shot glasses.
What a fun novelty for my next party!