Seriously. What the fuck? "Artisinal Ice?"
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/...n-ice-the-final-frontier-for-craft-cocktails/
As the 300-pound block of ice ascends from the Jacuzzi-sized industrial ice machine, its edges crackle like broken glass. Joseph Ambrose and Caleb Marindin use an engine hoist to lift the flawless-looking mass, which you can see straight through thanks to a system that circulates the water, releasing any bubbles as it freezes.
Ambrose and Marindin rotate the block and lower it onto a metal table, here in the Bethesda facility of boutique ice company, Favourite Ice. Ambrose takes out a chainsaw and cuts through it, spewing snowy bits across the room. Marindin, nicknamed the “Eskimo” for his Alaskan roots, picks up a frozen brick with his bare hands and moves it to a table saw. He slides the ice through the blade, creating smaller and smaller pieces.
“It’s actually a meat saw,” Ambrose says. “Those blades cut through bone.” Marindin can break down a 300-pound block into about 800 two-inch cubes within a few hours.
The point? Creating the perfect cocktail on the rocks.
Ambrose, a bartender at P.O.V. Lounge at downtown’s W Hotel, founded Favourite Ice last year with Range beverage director Owen Thomson. Marindin, another bartender at Range, handles most of the ice cutting.
Favourite Ice is the area’s first outfit selling customized ice, hand-cut to specification, specifically for cocktails. Its growing client list includes Range, Rasika, Jaleo, Estadio, Proof, and Hank’s Oyster Bar on the Hill.
Fresh-squeezed juices, infused liquors, and house-made sodas and bitters have already infiltrated D.C.’s drinking scene. Ice, it seems, is the final frontier for craft cocktails.
While local cocktail scene pioneers PX and Columbia Room have sculpted frozen blocks since they opened, “ice programs” are only just now becoming a hot—or, uh, cool—trend in D.C. bars. At Hank’s on the Hill, mixologist Gina Chersevani only uses ice carved from 25-pound blocks from Favourite Ice. José Andrés’ just-opened “cocktail lab,” Barmini, also hand-carves its ice using a Japanese handsaw. And whiskey-centric Rye Bar, opening at Georgetown’s Capella Hotel in April, is already promoting its “hand harvested ice program” with an array of “chilling options.”
“Ice is the soul of a cocktail,” says Barmini “cocktail innovator” Juan Coronado. “You have your spirits, you have your ingredients—your organs, basically, in a body—that give shape and texture and aroma and flavor to the cocktail. But without ice, you have nothing.”
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/...n-ice-the-final-frontier-for-craft-cocktails/