Ice. Frozen water. It makes drinks (and other things) cold. It eventually melts. Whee. Not terribly interesting, is it?

When the subject at hand is cocktails, apparently not. Lately, there has been an absolute TON of buzz in the cocktail enthusiast world about ice. The virtues of chipping ones’ own by hand, various types of water to try, boutique ice machines, supercooled ice… The mind boggles! Not least among the topics is the Japanese trend of cooling drinks with large spheres of the stuff.

The idea there is that a single sphere of ice will have less surface area than a handful of cubes or chips, and thus melt more slowly, delaying the dilution of your beautiful artisanal beverage. Artful bartenders in Japan have been known to sculpt these balls by hand, as the following video shows:

In my research, I found out that for those of us with less knife skill (and patience), there are molds available that simplify the process of creating these glacial orbs. The sticky part is, being a specialized Japanese thing, they’re not so easy to find in the good ol’ U S of A.

Rare? Cocktail-related? Not terribly useful? I had to have one, of course.

I looked at a few local pan-Asian markets without success, and finally read a Chowhound post about someone finding them at Daiso, a sort of Japanese dollar store. Other commenters hemmed and hawed “You have a Daiso nearby? You lucky bastard!” As it turns out, I too am a lucky bastard. There a Daiso in Daly City, just south of here. Today, led by the clarion call of very cold cocktails, I jumped in the car and returned with these:

The two on either side make spheres about 2.5 inches across, and the one in the center makes jagged “Rock Type” balls, that I guess are supposed to look more hand-carved. Anyhow, I loaded them up, waited, and used one to chill my current favorite drink to mix, a Manhattan. I know it’s not proper to serve one with ice in it and I’m supposed to chuck in a little gum syrup, but times like these call for drastic measures! (I’m out of syrup)

Manhattan Attacked by Monster Hail

1.5 oz Rye Whiskey (Rittenhouse Bonded, here)
1 oz Dry Vermouth (Noilly Prat, here)
3 dashes Orange Bitters (Regan’s #6)

Squeeze a lemon twist into your cocktail glass, add liquors and bitters, drop in a giant sphere of ice, and float the twist on top. There won’t be much room for stirring, so why not just spin the ice ball around a bit to incorporate things. When drinking, take care not to chip your tooth on ice ball.

I’ve got to say, this round ice business is a great idea. The drink I poured almost an hour ago is still Siberia-cold, and the Rock Type ice floating in it has hardly melted at all. Oh, and did I mention that these ice molds were only a buck fifty? I can hear your cars starting from here!

Cheers and happy mixing,
-GC

Filed under: Cocktail Hour
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