Clear Ice – Your Cocktails Deserve Quality Ice
Imagine, it’s Saturday night, your partner and yourself are mixing up some cocktails for the evening and you break out big chunks of clear ice instead of the small cloudy stuff from the ice maker. Your partner is impressed and let say the rest of the evening goes better than expected.
Okay, maybe that’s a little bit of a stretch, but it’s not of the realm of possibilities. Clear ice for your cocktails is a nice little bonus and makes it just a bit more special. Just like driving a Corvette is a little more special than driving an Accord.
There is only one way to make clear ice. I’ve seen a many ways listed on the internets, but the only way that really works is directional freezing. This is done by filling a small cooler with about 4 inches of water and then placing it in your freezer, with the top of the cooler cracked, for about 20 hours. Doing this cause the water to freeze from the top down, pushing all the air pockets and impurities to the bottom, and leaving you with block of clear ice.
After freezing for 20 hours, remove the cooler from the freezer and place on a cutting board or half sheet pan. Even better, do the next part outside or just be prepared to clean up a mess. The block has (hopefully) not froze completely solid, and there should be a pocket of water on the bottom of the block. Pop and hole in the block and drain.
Using a serrated knife and hammer/mallet remove any ice near the bottom of the block that is cloudy. You should be left with rectangular block of clear ice. Using a sawing motion, cut into the block slightly and lightly tap with the hammer to cut the block down into cubes. Will they look like they are from a mold? No. But that homemade look gives it a little bit of character. Also, those molds are not cheap and a small cooler will only set you back about 7 bucks.
Once your done with breaking the block down into cube, throw the ice into a Ziploc bag and store in the freezer…forever. Or at least until Saturday night. Or any night because it’s 2020 that that’s enough of an excuse to make cocktails whenever you desire.