This document provides an overview of the importance of ice in cocktails and the steps some bars and restaurants take to ensure their ice is clean and pure. It discusses how ice inhibits taste receptors to make alcohol taste less strong, and how water quality can impact the taste of ice and drinks. Some key points: - Bars filter their water before making ice to remove impurities that could impact drink flavor. - Using more ice results in slower melting and less drink dilution. - Home bartenders can use distilled/bottled water or filters to improve their ice water quality.

1. "On the Rocks, Please"
by TOM LLOYD | photo by STEVEN PAUL HLAVAC
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2. Most of us take ice for granted. We shouldn’t. Le t’s st art with
Happy hour wouldn’t be very happy without it, and odd as it
may seem to today’s label-conscious consumers, ice is
the basics...
every bit as important as the brand of alcohol used in
building America’s favorite social lubricant: the cocktail.
Cold is gold.
To paraphrase Shakespeare’s Prospero, ice is the (cold) stuff
that dreams are made on.
At Ruby Street Grille in Tavares, co-owner Andy Saunders ­­­­­­­­­­
Before bringing in the local professionals, let’s start with the says less is more when it comes to making ice.
basics.
With apologies to another Shakespeare character, there are
When it comes to cocktails, cold is gold. Ice inhibits certain more things in heaven and earth – and especially in tap
taste receptors on your tongue and makes alcohol taste, water – than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Depending
well, less alcoholic. Whether your tastes run to vodka or gin on where you live, those things may include lead, chlorine,
or scotch or bourbon, for most of us the cooler the drink, copper, arsenic, mercury, sodium, hydrogen sulfide and
the better the taste. benzene.
Making ice isn’t magic. Ice is water. Very, very cold water, to Since almost no one walks into a bar and asks for a Cutty
be sure, but it’s still just water. Fossilized bar flies like myself Sark and chlorine, every drop of water that goes into Ruby
might remember the days of block ice, chipped ice and Street’s icemaker is run through a special filtering system
shaved ice, but that particular ice age is long gone. The cube first.
is king now, and the truth is your refrigerator does a whiz-
bang job of making more cubes than most of us will ever Andy says this filtration is an essential step in making cocktail
need. With a little compressed gas and a row of coils, your ice.
Frigidaire will automatically change your water into ice. (If
you want to change your water into wine, you’ll need to Joshua Jungferman agrees. Fresh off a near-sweep of the
consult a higher authority.) “Best of Lake” restaurant awards, Josh is the general manager
at Pisces Rising in Mount Dora. His bar crews can run
That said, if the water coming out of your kitchen faucet has through upwards of one and a quarter tons of ice in a single
an odd taste or smell, don’t expect your refrigerator to day, so he added a second Manitowoc icemaker to the
change that. Sooner or later, ice does melt, and when it restaurant’s cocktail-making arsenal. The Cadillac of
melts it will impart that taste or smell directly to your drink. commercial ice machines, these beauties also filter out
pretty much everything that isn’t two parts hydrogen and
Likewise, if you’re the type who tucks tuna steaks into the ice one part oxygen.
bin, be prepared to end up with a cocktail that only the crew
of a Japanese fishing trawler could love. Sorry, Charlie. It For the home bartender, however, a giant Manitowoc in the
wouldn’t work for Starkist and it won’t work here. You’d have kitchen would be nothing short of overkill. Besides, there
already stolen your Stoli’s thunder, gone on a wild Grey are any number of other filtering options that won’t eat up
Goose chase and will never get to the land of blue Skyy all your counter space or quadruple your water and electric
living. In short, there’s Absolut-ely no chance of pouring a bills.
perfect drink with ice like that.
Filling ice trays with distilled or bottled water or using a Brita-
People whose livelihoods depend on serving adult beverages type water filter is one route. Getting professional help is
know this, and some of them take rather extraordinary steps another. There are no fewer than 35 water filtration
to ensure their cocktail ice does its job properly. Let’s face it, companies operating right here in Lake County.
you are far more likely to order a second, (or possibly third
and fourth) drink if the first one is perfect. Continued on Page 37
PULSE • FALL 2012 | 21

3. ICE, continued from Page 21
C&L
Still, unless your water is really bad, the easiest route to cocktail nirvana may be to
filter out myths rather than chemicals.
The worst of those myths is that using copious quantities of ice will dilute your
cocktails. The plain scientific fact is that the more ice you use, the slower that ice
will melt. That means less dilution. If you brush up on your Archimedes, you may
have an even bigger “Eureka” moment. Think displacement. Add as much of your
PRINTING INC.
favorite liquor as you want to an ice-filled glass, and presto magic, there’s not much AND GRAPHIC DESIGN
room left for the biggest drink diluter of all: the mixer!
So, when you set out to make the perfect cocktail, think about your ice. It really is WE’VE
the (cold) stuff that dreams are made on.
MOVED...
MARATHON, continued from Page 25
To handle the races, Vickie needs close to 200 volunteers scattered along the race
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Together we drove the marathon course which starts at the corner of Edgerton
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As we drove the marathon course, I could sense the emotion that gripped Vickie
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PULSE • FALL 2012 | 37