Sometimes, that offering would simply be a beautiful piece of ice – a luxury made all the more precious because people knew it would not last.
If you’ve ever sat in a Japanese cocktail bar and watched someone carve an ice gem for your drink, you will know how bewitching really immaculate ice can be. I often think we don’t value ice as an ingredient enough. Without it a cocktail is lifeless and flabby – it simply isn’t worth it.
A well-iced drink tastes electric; it’s more exciting to touch. It even sounds better – just think of the rattle of a shaker, or the mouthwatering clink of a G&T.
Before the birth of the commercial ice trade in the early 1800s, portable ice was a rare treat – aristocrats on the continent would have it brought down from the snow-capped mountains by donkey. It was the American entrepreneur Frederic Tudor who had the bright idea of harvesting ice from the frozen lakes of north America and shipping it to bars from New Orleans and Havana to Calcutta.
When, in 1845, a block of pristine New England ice went on display in a shop on The Strand in London, it drew a crowd. ‘The Londoners look upon it in amazement,’ wrote New Englander Henry Colman in European Life and Manners (1849). ‘I am told they sometimes go into the shop after gazing through the window, and put their hands on it, to be sure that it is not glass.’
Brits were (and, to my shame as a British drinks writer, still are) rather reluctant to actually add ice to their drinks. But Americans embraced it, to the extent that cocktails made with ice became one of the distinguishing features of a so-called ‘American Bar’.
One epicure who was most impressed by American ice culture was Charles Dickens. ‘Hark!’ he wrote in his 1842 travelogue American Notes, after a visit to a bar, ‘to the clinking sound of hammers breaking lumps of ice, and to the cool gurgling of the pounded bits, as, in the process of mixing, they are poured from glass to glass.’
By the 1950s, domestic ice makers had started taking off in the States, resulting in drinks like the Gibson on the Rocks becoming trendy. These days, of course, getting ice is easy – we don’t have to wait for a big freeze. But even so, the cold stuff continues to mesmerize.
Making crystal-clear ice from scratch is laborious. But it’s possible with a good bit of kit. The Klaris Clear Ice Maker will do four 2”x2” cubes every 8-12 hours and is compact enough to fit on a kitchen countertop. The Ice Book by Camper English – an authority on all things sub-zero – is also full of inspo if you want to get more creative.
My tip, though, would be simply to order in some beautiful ice from a specialist. Ice Modern and Hundredweight are two stateside craft ice companies that will deliver to your door.
One of the most delightful drinks-related presents I’ve ever received was a selection box of specialty ice – perfect cubes, spheres, oblongs and gems, some clear, some coloured, others frozen with gold leaf or rose buds inside.
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‘Ice in my time, ice was jewelry; none but the rich could wear it,’ wrote Mark Twain in his memoir Life on the Mississippi in 1883. ‘But anybody and everybody can have it now.’ So, please, treasure it.