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ICE isn’t just chill anymore, baby! It’s become the latest icebreaker in the conversations around craft cocktails. The unassuming ice cube – standard size of 1 ½ inches – found even in our home refrigerators has been the favoured work-horse and show-pony for bartenders and mixologists worldwide. Lately, things are changing with the introduction of new shapes, clarities, temperatures and infusions to ice.
“These are presentation ices,” points out Feruzan Bilimoria, the ex-head of advocacy education at Third Eye Distillery (producers of Stranger & Sons, among other alcoholic beverages and mixers) and presently, the pan-India head of mixology at True Palate Hospitality (the people behind one8 Commune, Neuma and Pincode). Feruzan, who says she can talk about ice “for hours” notes that this slickly simple ingredient has been the key to a good cocktail “since recipes for mixing drinks were recorded in books since the late 1700s”.
She says the books mention that ice should be made of filtered, clean water and that its purpose was to “amply dilute and chill the cocktail while it is being drunk but shouldn’t turn it into a watery mess”.
These latest innovations in ice are simply in the service of providing customers with the best experience. “Customers are curious and keen about understanding the purpose of each element of their drinks,” says Feruzan, adding that this might be a major motivator behind renewed attention being given to ice. “But bartenders and mixologists have always known it is crucial to crafting a cocktail,” she asserts.
Cocktails on one8 Commune's Temptations menu: Caramel Pop (left); Packs a Punch (right)
Neil Alexander, a mixologist who works between the United States, the Middle East and India besides consulting for over a decade with Windmills Bengaluru echoes this sentiment of know-how but underscores it with an observation. He says the way people respond to ice itself is also "cultural". "The perception in India is that ice isn’t good for you – people are concerned about the source of the water and about getting a cold or a sore throat. They also thought that they weren’t getting enough liquor in their cocktails if there was a large rock of ice in it,” he adds.
According to Feruzan, this isn’t the case at all. “The larger the ice in your drink, the less dilution because of the larger surface area of the ice. And so, its purpose is to chill the drink and not dilute,” she stresses. In his experiences in the international markets, Neil says, he found customers “understood the purpose of the ice being for temperature control” thus allowing the cocktail to be enjoyed from the first sip to the last one.
Muro's Rain Check is inspired by an espresso martini, which combines rum, kaapi, miso, palm sugar and coconut, while the Spice Mule at Muro is a take on spicy picantes.
Sahil Essani, the beverage manager at Muro Social Club, a craft cocktail bar based in Bengaluru, succinctly states: “Ice is to a bartender like fire is to a chef." It is integral to composing and crafting a good cocktail. “It’s like we cook with ice,” he reiterates. Sahil uses the example of Old Fashioned – a classic whiskey cocktail – which needs a big block of ice because it would melt slower, thus diluting the drink slower and holding the chill temperature of the drink longer. While with a mojito, a block of ice wouldn’t work but “pebble ice – the size of confetti balls, which melts faster” would help blend and continue to build the mojito in the glass as well. Perfecting the preparation and serving it in the best glassware can “fall flat if the ice used is wrong". "It’ll be a boring drink,” he cautions. Like fire, ice helps the mixologist play with and perfect the temperature at which the cocktail is best experienced. He goes on to tell us “that ices can be kept at different temperatures in different freezers, for example, the block ice might be set at minus four degrees; and cylindrical ice meant for highballs at minus eight degrees” because the corresponding cocktail might be served at that temperature. For Sahil, “ice allows for a cocktail to be dynamic – for it to hold its own”.
While customers and cocktail connoisseurs are learning to appreciate the ice in their drinks more recently, Neil and Sahil are quick to indicate that bars, even in India, have been paying attention to it for more than a decade now. “The current trend of clarified cocktails, Japanese highballs and such need clear ice for the drink to shine. But over nine years, we were making our own ice at Windmills,” Neil states. “Having travelled to Japan previously, and seen bartenders there carve their own ice and shape it to a glass – that’s the kind of attention I brought back to the bartending at Windmills,” he adds.
In under a year of being open, the Muro Social Club already has “an ice programme,” says Sahil. Making their ice in-house has been a win-win situation for them. “It gives them complete creative control of their ice and also fits into the bar’s values of working towards reducing their carbon footprint by cutting out the logistics of it,” explains Sahil. Muro presently has an iceman – Andrew Yim – for the past three months who hand carves out every single block, cube, cylinder and any other shape of ice to match the cocktails and the different glassware so that they "can place the ice into the glass and the drink doesn’t go over the washline of the glass,” Sahil tells us. Besides being able to tailor their ice production to their daily demand, it also allows them to temper their ice, he further mentions. Like tempering chocolate increases its stability, here too, freezing, then heating it a little, and refreezing it before packaging for storage helps the ice hold temperature much better.
Customised ice at Windmills (left), and their Toffee and Chocolate Old Fashioned (right)
These subtle innovations are being appreciated more by customers who are gathering more knowledge about cocktails. “But culturally, we are still sensitive to ice,” Feruzan reminds us, and that’s understandable. So if a customer doesn’t want ice, “we’ll take it out of your drink, maybe add a mixer or a juice to balance it out. But this doesn’t result in a bigger pour of alcohol either,” she says and laughs. “Each cocktail recipe has a standard pour size – 45 ml to 60 ml – and this doesn’t change with or without the ice,” she adds. And to the trending videos of people removing the ice from their cocktails to reveal its quantity, she says: “Boss, you aren’t being scammed. We aren’t here to judge you for your choices either – we just want to make you, the customer, a perfectly balanced cocktail. And ice is extremely important to delivering that product and promise.”
