Depending on how serious you are about your cocktails (and, at least for us here at the Manual, we’re as serious about our cocktails as the Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin was about the word “Crikey”), you may or may not have ever thought about the ice in your drink beyond, “is there ice in my drink?” After checking out the new ice ball maker that Wintersmiths and The Macallan have teamed up to create, though, we think you’ll start thinking about ice in a whole new way.
Ice balls are important for cocktails for a few reasons. First, the shape helps slow dilution. With square cubes, or many small ice cubes, there is more surface area, leading to faster dilution. Second, a clear ice ball just looks damn pretty. If you’ve got an amazing spirit in your glass, why screw it up with cloudy ice?
The Ice Baller Double works by using your regular tap water and directionally freezing it to remove air bubbles and impurities in the water, leaving you with crystal clear ice balls that are two 2.36” (60mm) in diameter. (Fewer impurities and air bubbles also leads to less of a chance of the ice cracking, which would again lead to more ice surface area which would, as you just learned, lead to faster dilution.)
The entire Ice Baller Double is made from BPA-free plastic, FDA approved food-grade silicone, and EPE foam and measures 7” x 4” x 7”, so clear out those popsicles you bought when you were drunk last summer because Otter Pops sounded like a really good idea and put this in there instead. They were a bad idea then, and they’re still a bad idea now. Clear ice, however, is a wonderful idea.
You can buy the Ice Baller Double on its own for $80 or, the better option (especially if you’re a traveler) is to pick up the Ice Baller Double in an exclusive bundle that also contains a bottle of Macallan Rare Cask Black (48% ABV, non-chill filtered). The special edition package retails for $495 and can be found in key travel retail airport locations throughout the Asia Pacific region.
