There are dozens of different ways to serve up a glass of whiskey — on the rocks, neat, on some whiskey stones, or even on those nifty little “balls of steel.” Each method has its merits, but if you enjoy just a slight bit of dilution (just a tiny bit!), we highly recommend you snag yourself an ice baller. Here’s why:
Whiskey stones and steel balls work just fine for cooling down your drink, but they don’t give you that slight bit of dilution that most of us find desirable. They’re essentially just a cool-looking way to refrigerate your liquor without actually putting it in the fridge.
The other method is to go the old-fashioned route and simply pour your whiskey (or scotch, or whatever) over some regular ice cubes. This tried-and-true technique will simultaneously cool and dilute your hooch, but more often than not, regular rocks will melt too quickly and make it too watery.
If you find yourself struggling to find that perfect Goldilocks level of dilution, ice balls are the answer. Because they’ve got less surface area than a set of separate cubes, they melt more gradually, leaving you with the ideal water/whiskey ratio.
Generally speaking, any old ice baller will do the trick, but if you want one that will turn some heads at parties, check out this one from Wintersmiths. Born from a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter a couple years ago, the Wintersmiths Ice Baller is the only contraption of it’s kind that makes perfectly clear, perfectly spherical ice balls.
Unlike other ice ballers, which typically require you to smash cubes into a spherical shape, Wintersmiths achieves such perfect ice balls by freezing water directionally, from bottom to top, with the help of a cleverly-designed silicon insert. The result is a flawless ball of ice that melts more slowly than a set of small cubes, and also dilutes your drinks to a lesser extent.
Get your hands on one here.
