How Fancy Cocktail Ice Cubes Are Made by Hand

At quality cocktail bars across the globe, drinks are chilled by precisely shaped, crystal-clear ice cubes. However, most people don’t realize that these dense and exacting cubes are hand-cut or hand-harvested. 

Unlike typical ice cubes, extra-large ones don’t plop out of an ice machine that cranks them out 24 hours a day. Most big ice cubes are cut from giant 300-pound blocks produced in machines designed to make perfectly clear blocks for ice sculptures.

Making big blocks

These large machines, made by various manufacturers, cost anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000. They look like a big metal box on legs, with an insulated top. A cold plate sits on the bottom of the box. 

The box is filled with water, and water pumps (much like those in an aquarium) are placed near the surface. The water first freezes on the bottom, and the ice grows upward toward the surface over a few days. The water pumps prevent ice from forming on the top surface of the block, which would cause it to freeze from the top down as well. 

When ice freezes in one direction, it freezes clear. The cloudiness found in typical ice cubes comes mostly from trapped air in the middle. When the block inside the machine is almost completely frozen, the remaining surface water, often salty and full of concentrated minerals, is discarded. The big ice block is then removed. 

To get the heavy block out, most ice block machines require an industrial-strength hoist, like those that lift car engines. The blocks can then be stored in a freezer until they’re ready to be cut up. 

From block to rocks

The large blocks are typically cut into slabs, which are then sectioned into cubes. To cut these slabs, some companies use electric chainsaws that are lubricated with food-grade oil, if at all. Other companies use bandsaws. 

The slabs are cut into cubes, almost always with bandsaws that make nice, straight edges. This process goes quickly, especially if one person loads the slabs and stacks the cut cubes while another operates the bandsaw. One ice provider said that he and two assistants can harvest and cut up two blocks of ice, which produce more than 800 cubes, in about two hours. 

Enter the craft cocktail ice provider

Some bar owners operate their own ice-block machines, especially if the bar is quite big or has multiple venues with which to share ice. More commonly, craft cocktail ice companies produce, sell, and deliver the cubes to bars. 

Andrew Amron, owner of The Ice Doctor out of Gainesville, Florida, has 13 block makers that produce 34,500 cubes per week. He sells them to 118 bars and restaurants from central Florida to southeast Georgia. And this is a midsize operation. 

Some larger companies own expensive, computer-controlled CNC machines that carve logos and patterns into cubes. They may also produce other shapes, such as punch bowls and rings, or tall spears used in highball or Collins glasses. Many sell ice balls that have been melted down from large cubes formed in a metal mold. There’s also a machine that carves ice balls from slabs of ice, which is more common in Japan. 

These companies also freeze garnishes and other objects into cubes or blocks. To do so, they insert objects into the water of the ice-block maker and then cut up the resulting block into cubes, ensuring they don’t damage the frozen objects inside. 

Smaller operations

The cost of the big cubes made by craft ice providers varies significantly, but is typically between 50 cents and $2 per cube. That is a big expense, so some bars outsource only part of the process.

Some bars take delivery of the sculpture-sized blocks (or quarter-blocks) and cut them up with bandsaws and electric chainsaws, or with hand tools like saws and chisels. 

There are also smaller machines that create ice roughly the size of a cinder block. These are useful in some bar operations, such as at the Seattle bar The Doctor’s Office.

Other bars use special clear ice cube trays. These trays sit inside insulated containers that force the water to freeze from the top down, rather than from the bottom up, as in the block machines. However, these trays take up a lot of freezer space and require some effort to harvest and refill every couple of days. 

In the past few years, some new ice machines have been introduced that create large, crystal-clear cubes in a few hours. These work similarly to the block machines with water pumps and have to be harvested in batches. So far, these machines are designed for luxury home bars rather than cocktail bars.  

Because of the way clear ice is made — either frozen from the top down or the bottom up — it’s more efficient to produce in large blocks, rather than cube by cube like the ice machine inside your freezer. This means that no matter whether you’re sitting at home or in a fancy hotel cocktail bar, your crystal-clear ice cube was almost certainly made by hand.