If you don't drink whiskey neat, you may be accustomed to clearing ice floating in your cocktail or whiskey at bars and restaurants. So why does it come out cloudy when you try to make your own ice at home?
Those milky-centered cubes left out of your freezer don't just look bad. There's another, worse reason to avoid those cloudy crescents in your freezer: They can change the taste of your drink. We're not just talking about weird smells coming from your freezer (you should clean it, though). Cloudy ice may contain impurities that will negatively affect the quality of your drink, whiskey or something else.
“If you get to the middle of a big cloudy cube, it tastes a little off and you think it's just because it's watery, but you've actually hit a mineral pocket,” says Camper English, founder of Alcademics and spirits expert. .com and author of the award-winning book Book of Ice.
English has demonstrated the results of countless ice experiments over the years. These minerals are those found in your tap water, such as fluoride, chlorine, or iron. But this cloudy pocket also traps air and other things you don't want getting into the last drops of your cocktail.
Unfortunately, when using traditional home ice makers and ice trays, this is inevitable due to a significant design flaw. In a cube, the six outer walls freeze first, allowing these minerals to form crystals and settle in the middle of the cube.
There are misconceptions about how to fix these defects. “Everyone thinks you have to boil the water,” says English. “This is misinformation. It may help clarity a little, but it doesn't compare to directional freezing.”
Related: We Tasted Hundreds of Scotch Whiskeys. These 16 Bottles Are the Best of 2024
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What is Directional Freezing?
Remember how we mentioned that the cubes freeze on all six walls at once? Directional freezing allows the ice to freeze in one direction, so all those minerals are pushed to one side.
Although they run for $5,000 or more and take up the same amount of space as two single beds, there are machines that will solve this problem for you. But there are other ways to get glass-like ice, and some of them will only cost you $10.
How to Make Clear Ice with Just a Cooler
If you're on a budget, all you need is a small six-can cooler (English recommends Igloo). Follow these steps:
- Fill the cooler with tap or purified water, leaving an inch or two of space at the top to allow for expansion.
- Place on a flat rack in the freezer, uncovered, for 24 hours (freezing time varies from freezer to freezer, so it may need more time). Ice will freeze from top to bottom as the coolant acts as an insulator.
- After a day, check whether the ice has solidified completely. Turn it upside down on a clean surface if available. Wait 5 minutes (or more).
- As the block melts, ice will be released from the cooler. If you timed it right, the mineral-rich water should not have solidified and would still remain at the bottom of the cooler. Be careful and have your towels ready.
- Use a serrated blade to split the block into cubes or columns: Score a line into the ice with small sawing motions, then use a hammer to tap the top of the blade to release the ice. If the bottom is completely frozen, use a serrated knife to break up this layer.
- Pro tip: Start in the middle. English says this is often easier than carving cubes on the side, so cut each piece in half until you get the size you want. And don't try to break it with one blow. Break it along the line (along the length of the blade) with firm strokes until it shatters.
Don't worry if your cubes or columns aren't perfect. “I don't really care about perfectly square ice,” English says. It will still look beautiful in a glass.
Wintersmiths Phantom Ice Maker
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If you don't want to try this experiment, invest in one of our top picks for making clear ice at home: the Wintersmiths Phantom Ice Maker. With it you can make large and small spheres, large and small cubes, collins spears and prisms. It is perfect.
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