Short Treatise on the Importance of Ice Cubes (Cubism)

We all have that one friend who invites us over for drinks, offers us a Gin & Tonic and then divulges that they have either run out of ice, forgotten to fill their ice-trays or worst of all, digs out a shitty little ice-tray from the back of the freezer. This tray has been laying in a cryogenic coma for the past six months and if you are lucky, may deposit three or four minuscule, dirty and frost-bitten ice-cubes into the bottom of your glass. At this point, one should politely request a glass of wine instead.

Consider the requisites of the often under-appreciated ice-cube. It must adequately chill your drink without melting too fast and diluting it. It should have the proper proportions — shape and size — to be effective as well as aesthetically pleasing. It should enhance and support the enjoyment your beverage, and produce a pleasing tinkling sound when it knocks against your glass.

Of course, Americans understand the importance of ice very well, perhaps being a little overzealous in their generosity by filling your water glass to the brim with beautiful glaciers. One sip will give you a stab of pain in the head and freeze your fillings. Everything is bigger and better in the United States. Super king beds, power showers, giant food portions, free refills, and my absolute favourite — double fridges that generate ice-cubes twenty-four heavenly hours per day. The Shangri La of refrigerators. Oh, what I would give for one of these. I would probably grab handfuls of cut-glass ice and just for fun, shove them down that other luxury that is standard in every American home, the garbage disposal, knowing that there is plenty more where that came from.

Sadly, the rest of the world hasn’t caught up with America in this regard. British kitchens are too small to accommodate massive fridges, the Victorian plumbing too archaic to even consider the notion of a garbage disposal unit and the water pressure too insipid to offer us a shower with any real power. Therefore I have had to opt for the manual method when it comes to dispensing ice-cubes and am pleased to inform you that after a life-long search for the consummate ice-tray, I have finally found a silicon version that unloads beautiful medium-to-large cube-shaped ice that any aperitif or cocktail would be proud to contain.

Now I must go, I have to refill my ice-trays.