Acidic and sweet drinks benefit from colder temperatures and more dilution to stop it from becoming a syrupy cocktail.Getty Images/iStockphoto
The most important ingredient uniting all cocktails is ice.
It's easy to lose sight of that in the winter. As we hibernate at bars, eager for the frost to melt off patios, we're often too preoccupied with complaining about the weather to recognize that the perfectly crafted martini – neither watered-down nor bitingly alcoholic – is perfect only because it has been shaken, stirred or served with meticulously chosen ice.
From carefully selected bitters to the right amount of sugar, a well-balanced drink depends on every ingredient fulfilling its duty. Ice has two main responsibilities: to control the temperature and dilution.
In pursuit of their frozen ideal, bartenders across Canada spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars creating everything from homemade ice slabs to "violet liquor snow." But it hasn't always been this way.
When Simon Ogden started bartending 30 years ago, ice wasn't part of the curriculum. "Through the late eighties and early nineties, we didn't think about ice like this. Every cocktail got thrown into a shaker with a scoopful of ice and just got shaken for as long as we could shake it," he says. "We'd use our other hand to give our guests the gun and wink."
As cocktail culture has become increasingly perfectionist, Ogden has increasingly pursued the freeze of his dreams. He now runs the bar at Veneto Tapa Lounge in Victoria, where he uses five types of ice. All are homemade in silicon moulds with filtered water, and stored in a dedicated freezer that hovers at minus 10 to minus 15 C.
Ogden says it takes years to understand what ice should be paired with which drink, but he offers that, generally, the scale ranges from Manhattan to margarita. Booze-forward, canon cocktails like the first are well suited for dense ice with a large surface area, such as a two-inch cube or a sphere, to keep it cold without over-diluting it – ideal for slow sipping. Acidic and sweet drinks like the last benefit from colder temperatures and more dilution – rigorous shaking, a few welcome ice shards, crushed ice – to stop it from becoming a giant, syrupy, pungent cocktail.
"Every cocktail has its own needs from ice, and the mark of your professionalism is to mix a drink of perfect balance and temperature," Ogden says.
Good ice has a price, and it can be steep. In British Columbia, most people head to Polar Ice for massive skids and On The Rocks for custom bags. In Ontario, the Iceman is the place to go – there, two-inch, dense cubes cost 90 cents apiece, while spheres go for more than a dollar each.
"If I'm going to add a dollar to the drink, I'd rather increase the quality of the spirit," says Jacob Wharton-Shukster, at Toronto's Chantecler.
Instead of buying ice, he makes his with lunch-box-sized coolers (with the lid open), using "directional freezing": The water is frozen slowly over 30 hours so that air bubbles and impurities are pushed to the bottom, leaving a top slab of clear, dense ice. Wharton-Shukster then uses a serrated knife to score the ice, followed by a hammer to tap out two-inch cubes, some of which will be hand-chipped into spheres.
He also has an antique ice crusher that cranks out ice pebbles and a Kold-Draft machine, which can cost upward of $4,000. The machine creates beautiful one-inch, filtered cubes that are incredibly dense – slow-melting ice, which translates to more dilution control. In terms of an all-purpose, everyday cocktail ice, it's an ice-spitting champion – when the machine is working.
Over the past five years, Kold-Draft ice has become the industry standard – about 85 per cent of Ontario bars and restaurants have one. "The machine is kind of a pain in the ass," says Robin Kaufman of the Toronto Temperance Society. "It breaks down when you think everything is fine and starts making huge holes in the cubes."
It's a sensitive machine; if the room gets too hot, you'll probably end up with some flooding.
When it's the middle of service, and every drink is in jeopardy, the Temperance Society often sends an employee out with a bucket in hand, begging for any ice that fellow bars are willing to spare. "But we only go where we know they have Kold-Draft," Kaufman says. "It's a routine. But people come to us all the time too."
It's a misconception that more ice means less booze or a watery drink, says Tyler Newsome, the bar manager at Soho House in Toronto (which also uses Kold-Draft ice). "Guests will often ask for less ice because they want a stronger drink," Newsome says. But whether it's a whisky sour or Jameson on the rocks, the amount of alcohol is standard. As is the amount of ice at Soho House: four Kold-Draft cubes for a cocktail and two for straight liquor.
When the beverage is finished, there should be ice remnants in the glass. "That means the drink was kept at the optimal temperature for the entire experience," Newsome explains. "The right type and amount of ice elevates the alcohol; it doesn't mask it."
That's right, ice is a good thing – even in the middle of a Canadian winter.