Of Ice and Men
Directional Freezing, The Art Of Ice Crafting and Cocktail Culture with Chas Ayres
There are lots of variables that go into producing and serving drinks that make people remember their experience at a bar or restaurant. A factor that should never be overlooked is ice.
That’s why I’m pleased to present an interview with speciality ice maker Chas Ayres. The co-owner of Ice Cubed and founder of Black Ice CPD, Ayres has been serving ice across the UK for over fifteen years.
In this interview, he reveals the details of ice cutting, the role it plays in cocktails and more.
What inspires you day to day about your job?
I work on the mantra of do what you love, but call it work. I've been cutting fancy ice for a long time, long before there was a need.
Social media has made the world a small place and has provided lots of inspiration for people like myself, especially when you look at what’s been going on in America.
Back in the 2010s, visionaries like Camper English identified the need for luxury ice with methods like directional freezing and how that works with elevating cocktails. The idea of directional freezing is fascinating to me and appeals to my interest in seeing the finer details of everything in the work.
No two days at Ice Cubed or Black Ice are ever the same and putting passion into the operational side of things is important.
It’s asking questions like are the cold rooms for the ice working at the right temperature? What’s the state of the carving tanks? Are the crews motivated and fired up to deliver to our customers?
Because it’s all about delighting our customers and making sure the ice enhances their menus.
What trends do you see with ice in the drinks industry right now?
Luxury and niche are two trends that never go away. This might involve sipping a perfectly crafted cocktail with an intriguing garnish, primo glass and a top-shelf spirit and piece of ice that complements the drink.
This also ties into the cyclical trend of the big four spirits: vodka, gin, whisky and rum. Vodka was big in the 1990s, then you have a rotating door of people moving to whisky, the massive gin boom of the 2010s and now we’re seeing rum come back along as a premium spirit.
Ice has had an important role in the popularity of the big four from an aesthetics and tasting perspective.
I also see it having a positive impact on the emerging no and low movement. Imagine you’re in a bar with someone who doesn’t drink and they see a fancy, colourful mocktail with a beautifully crafted piece of ice in it.
It might intrigue them and someone who’s never thought about drinking a non-alcoholic cocktail before. Ice is an easy way to get across the idea of a non-alcoholic spirit being a premium product and factor in a higher price point for the bar.
The shaping of ice sounds fascinating to me and I imagine there's a lot of psychology behind it for making sure the shape fits with different drinks and themes.
From my experience, most speciality ice providers worldwide have 6-8 styles of ice available. A couple of rocks, a couple of highballs, a couple of balls and one other style.
Finding out what the client wants is always my first question with any prospective ice programme. Establishing the budget is the second question and then it’s about getting into the nuts and bolts of the drink.
It isn't a fluke when someone has a drink presented to them that has a piece of ice that sits perfectly between the rim and the washline and bartenders can execute it time after time, getting the same volume into the vessel.
If the client loves the drink and takes a picture of it for social media, then it’s icing on the cake for us.
How does the shape of the ice impact the quality of a drink?
Drinking a Martini is different to drinking a Long Island Ice Tea right? The ice in a drink, whether out of a machine or a piece cut by a human should complement and elevate that particular serve.
A couple of examples come to mind. Most drinks in Tiki bars are served over crushed ice, generally because they (historically) contained more than the standard 50-60ml of alcohol. The crushed ice adds to the dilution and was probably a cool (no pun intended) factor that Donn Beach, the founder of Tiki bar culture in the US had in mind when he opened his gaffs in the 1950s.
On the other hand, a negroni served over crushed ice may or may not work as well and the essence of the cocktail could be lost. That strong, sharp, short experience would be radically altered.
For the operators that think about this deeply, form follows function.
If we continue by looking at the Negroni, let's look at it two ways: In the first establishment there's no fancy ice programme and the drink is ordered, and then built in the glass. Ice. Equal parts Gin/Vermouth/Campari over. Stirred, garnish in and sent out. The drink will continue to develop and dilute in that glass.
The second establishment uses fancy ice. The drink is ordered, the glass with fancy ice gets put on the counter. The equal parts go into a mixing glass and are stirred down for a few moments with machine-made ice poured over. Garnish in and sent out.
For the vast majority of those serves that drink will not change in flavour. Anything up to about 15 minutes (and that's a long time for the average person to imbibe a short drink) the ice will add practically no dilution into the drink but will maintain the temperature of the serve.
That's for a number of reasons relating to physics, there's nothing magical about it.
High-quality bars understand what they want to achieve and will use different pieces of ice to achieve different results. The best ones even monitor the drinks in their programme and change a variable if they aren't achieving the result they want.
Something came up recently with a gin and tonic that was going out in a collins glass with a stick ice piece. But the drink wasn't chilling or diluting well enough i.e. the ice literally wasn't doing its job.
So the client asked me about doing something and I suggested a product that I didn’t have a name for at the time. I ended up calling them 'wine pebbles’ even though they've not got anything to do with wine, and it worked a treat.
All it takes is one small conversation, one strand of thought among a whole bar operation for a positive impact to be made.
What are some of the most complex or off-the-wall ice shapes you've had to craft for clients?
We've been asked for lots of stuff over the years but our philosophy hasn’t changed since day one. We’re inspired by the idea of Japanese shokunin, craftsmen and artisans who dedicate everything to the details.
Or put another way, it’s sniper rifle, not shotgun. Precision and specificity are crucial.
Hollow ice spheres would be the most fiddly pieces we produce at the moment. They’re delicate and the timings need to be precise. But once you’ve perfected a formula for volume operation the processes are straightforward.
For some out-there stuff that’s being produced elsewhere, I’d recommend checking out Suntory’s Ice Shapes that are incredible. They really show what’s technically possible with ice and have all kinds of shapes like Godzilla, Batman etc.