Ice Balls

 

The frozen cubes that come out of your freezer's ice maker are beyond disgusting. They are a pale, milky white and appear to be a frozen ice core of Jurassic fish roe. The reason the ice is white is because it is full of impurities. Looks bad. Tastes bad. Melts bad.

And everyone has a solution to get rid of the white impurities in that ice. Boil the water three times before you put it in the tray. Use distilled water. Use fresh spring water. Well, all of those are wrong. If you want perfectly shaped, crystal-clear ice you need to utilize this formula:

Lovers of science will recognize that as Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation. And when it is applied to ice, you get perfectly shaped, crystal-clear ice balls. As it happens, the white impurities you see in regular ice cubes are, in fact, heavier than water. But if your ice maker is a single level container, those impurities have nowhere to go and end up in the cube.

Using Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, there is a very inexpensive and simple way for you to make perfect ice balls. Amazon has a bunch of these....a 2-ball mold is $39 and a 4-ball mold is $59. They work by being a 2-story tall container. You fill them with warm water and then slide the mold in at the very top. Because the impurities are heavier than water, they sink to the bottom. Gravity is your friend. So what is left behind in the upper mold is a crystal-clear ball of ice.

After 24 hours, you slip the mold out and retrieve your perfect ice balls. Then you get rid of the lower level of ice because that is full of impurities. While I'm not a whiskey drinker, I know whiskey connoisseurs swear by these ice balls. I like to use mine with a few shots of Belvedere Vodka. First, the crystal-clear ice ball looks great in a leaded crystal glass. Second, it is pure H2O ice and does not compromise the flavor of your beverage of choice. Finally, because the ice ball has much less surface area than a glassful of ice cubes, it melts dramatically slower and does not water down your drink. What's not to love about that? 

Ice Balls! Shout it out!