Summer is the time for cottages, BBQs and, of course, refreshing cocktails. A few weeks back, we brought you some Japanese-inspired cocktail ideas from Grey Goose to impress even the hardest-to-please YP guest. We described a process used in Japan whereby the bartender will craft an ice ball from a cube of ice with the aid of an ice pick right in front of the customer’s eye to produce a singular, spherical piece of ice. The idea is that the one large globe of ice cools gradually and melts much slower, lessoning the dilution in our precious cocktail and maintaining its balance and flavour.
While we witnessed the crafting of this perfect piece of ice in a matter of minutes by a renowned bartender, we are pretty sure that the typical home-entertaining YP would still be carving by the time his or her guests were ready to leave. Well, much to our excitement, we found exactly what we were looking for at Williams Sonoma with their Japanese Ice Maker.
This luxury bar accessory allows the creation of perfectly round ice spheres for your favourite summer cocktails. Square cubes are instantly sculpted into perfect spheres sans ice pick when placed, individually, within the mold. The result is a perfect, 1″-diameter ice ball. The machine features two 8-section plastic ice trays for preparing the 2 1/2″-square ice cubes for use with the mold. Machined out of heavy, durable anodized aluminum, the machine is conveniently compact for the condo kitchen or summer cottage.
Ice this pretty doesn’t come cheap, though; the product retails for $300.