Ice ice, baby

I have an automated ice-maker in my fridge, but I don't use a lot of ice. Maybe for an occasional iced-coffee, but that's about it for personal use. When I'm having company who may be interested in a drink-drink, I check to make sure that the ice that has been automatically made hasn't shriveled up, and usually end up pressing the button to make more-better ice.

But mostly, I'm not all that fussy about ice. 

Other than that I don't like ice that "smells funny," which was what generally came out of my mother's freezer. I don't know what caused her funny smelling ice, but the joke was that you had to wash it before using it. And we did, in fact, rinse the ice at her house.

But I've never given a thought to clear ice vs. cloudy ice. 

Among drink purists, among ice purists, there is apparently a distinction, and a strong preference for clear ice. 

One of the drink/ice purists is retired attorney Jim Blakey, who lives in Hingham, an upscale town on Boston's South Shore where one can imagine wind-down drinks and cocktail parties happening with some regularity. 

Nearly a decade ago, Blakey began experimenting with clear ice making, and over that near-decade, clear ice has become a thing.. 

“It’s a phenomenon,” he said. “If you were to go onto Amazon and type in clear ice six years ago, you’d find a handful of products that would make clear ice at home. Now you can find page after page of products.” (Source: Boston Globe)

One of those products is Blakey's Clearly Frozen ice trays. So far he's sold "nearly 50,000 ice trays to more than 300 bars and restaurants across the country, along with consumers worldwide." A tray retails for $44, and if clear ice in general is a "phenomenon," Clearly Frozen is a particular phenomenon, garnering rave reviews from consumers and the pros: 

Wine Enthusiast named it “Best for Clear Ice” last year, and Food & Wine named it “Best for Clear Cocktail Ice.” 

Blakey began futzing around for his own personal use, but somewhere along the time, he had a lightbulb moment:

His breakthrough came when he discovered the concept of directional freezing, where water can be frozen from top down instead of from the sides toward the center of an ice cube. Blakey said this is the key to his product’s viability, as this process forces cloudy impurities from the cubes.

And he also realized that he might have a business there. Which he clearly did. 

So now:

His second professional act has become all-consuming: He spends a lot of time answering ice-related emails, and even his kitchen cabinet knobs are cube-shaped. The company officially launched in 2018 and is growing at a time when the cocktail industry is booming post-pandemic, and more and more people want the true bar experience — with mixed drinks paired with clear ice — at home.

Good for Blakey. Sounds like a fun and maybe even lucrative way to spend your retirement. 

Clearly Frozen isn't as simple to use as, say, just pressing the button for an automated delivery, or just flooding an old fashioned ice cube tray (flexible plastic that you twist and turn to dislodge the cubes, or the old-school aluminum ones of yore with the lever to unleash the ice cubes). But if you're looking for clear ice, sounds like Clearly Frozen is worth the $44. 

Me? I'll stick with the meh ice my freezer produces for free. 

But the next time I have a drink-drink out, I'll be giving the ice cubes a once over to see if they're clear.