Being an amateur mixologist is serious business. You don’t go around town carrying a Mixology Kit Bag for no reason. As such, you’re the kind of person who can always appreciate new ways to change up the shapes and consistencies of the ice that go in your drinks. The guys behind the Neat Ice Kit believe it needs to find space in your gear stash.
Know how fancy cocktail bars will have specific kinds of ice for specific kinds of drinks? Well, those are usually made using expensive machines that, to be honest, just wouldn’t make sense for some dude who mixes drinks as a Friday night hobby, no matter how obsessive you are about it.
The Neat Ice Kit is a simple set of tools that let you produce ice that’s similar in quality to those served in professional establishments, all without the large investment in equipment that usually entails. Set includes four items: an ice mold, an ice chisel, a Lewis bag and a wooden muddler. Using just these four small tools, you can create three types of ice commonly found in professionally done-up cocktails, namely large crystal-clear ice cubes, large ice chunks (use the ice chisel to break the big cubes into chunks), and crushed ice (use the Lewis bag and wooden muddler to make these).
The crucial tool here is the ice mold, which allows you to make a large rectangular chunk of ice — half of which is crystal clear, while the other half is cloudy. To use in a drink, simply cut off the ice in half using your chisel and you’ve got a perfectly clear giant ice cube. According to the creators, the insulated ice mold causes the water to freeze from the top down (instead of from outside in), so trapped air and impurities are pushed to the bottom, causing the top half to be perfectly clear.
Currently, the Neat Ice Kit is collecting backers from Kickstarter. Pledges to reserve yourself a set starts at $50.