❄️Ice cubes: A chilling tale of cultural imperialism

America has a knack for inventing reasons to spend money on things—like its tradition of putting frozen water into beverages. Ancient Chinese, Greeks, Romans, and Persians all had [methods]( of harvesting and storing winter ice, but it was undoubtedly the Yanks who turned it into a cottage industry and eventually a [multibillion-dollar]( global supply chain. Today, despite the best efforts of certain American moguls, not all nations have the same fervor for frozen H2O. Ask for an ice-cold Coke in Europe, and you’re likely to get a can plus a glass with a few measly cubes, at best. And the veritable bucket of free iced tap water Americans expect when they sit down at a restaurant? Keep dreaming. There’s some notable exceptions—such as southeast Asian nations which, among other chilled beverage advancements, have developed the delicious and necessary habit of [drinking beer over ice]( many countries view iced beverages as somewhat of a swindle: Why would you ever allow free frozen water to take up valuable [glass real estate]( Let’s break the ice and dive in. 🐦 [Tweet this]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( [Quartz Obsession] Ice cubes July 17, 2018 The big chill --------------------------------------------------------------- America has a knack for inventing reasons to spend money on things—like its tradition of putting frozen water into beverages. Ancient Chinese, Greeks, Romans, and Persians all had [methods]( of harvesting and storing winter ice, but it was undoubtedly the Yanks who turned it into a cottage industry and eventually a [multibillion-dollar]( global supply chain. Today, despite the best efforts of certain American moguls, not all nations have the same fervor for frozen H2O. Ask for an ice-cold Coke in Europe, and you’re likely to get a can plus a glass with a few measly cubes, at best. And the veritable bucket of free iced tap water Americans expect when they sit down at a restaurant? Keep dreaming. There’s some notable exceptions—such as southeast Asian nations which, among other chilled beverage advancements, have developed the delicious and necessary habit of [drinking beer over ice]( many countries view iced beverages as somewhat of a swindle: Why would you ever allow free frozen water to take up valuable [glass real estate]( Let’s break the ice and dive in. 🐦 [Tweet this]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( AP/Ryan Miller By the digits [$2.5 billion:]( Revenues of the packaged ice industry [18,000 tons:]( Daily ice-making capacity of Reddy Ice, America’s largest packaged-ice maker [500 tons:]( Daily ice-making capacity of The Ice Co. in South Kirby, England—Europe’s largest packaged-ice maker [$6,000:]( Cost of a Clinebell artisanal ice machine [$3:]( Cost of a 2.5-inch hand-carved pressed orb from Houston-based [Viking Craft Ice]( [$0.60–$0.80:]( Estimated amount an artisanal “ice program” adds to the cost of a drink [2 minutes:]( Time it takes legendary Japanese bartender Hidetsugu Ueno to carve an “ice diamond” [2:]( Varieties of bubbly Champagne maker Moët & Chandon now sells specifically designed to be consumed [on the rocks]( [$28 million:]( Revenues of the film Friday, starring the rapper-actor Ice Cube Reuters/Eric Gaillard Pop quiz Which American fast food chain has created a cult following for its distinctive “nugget ice”? Burger KingSonic Drive-InWendy’sIn-N-Out Correct. Incorrect. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. AP Photo/Torsten Blackwood Origin story How Frederic Tudor iced the world --------------------------------------------------------------- Prior to the 1800s, ice was a decidedly regional and luxurious affair—you could enjoy it if you lived near sources of natural ice and could afford it. But [in 1805]( Boston-born Frederic “The Ice King” Tudor had a hunch that harvesting ice from the frozen lakes, river, and ponds (including famed Walden Pond) of New England and shipping them south to the tropics would [make him]( “inevitably and unavoidably rich.” So began the North American natural ice trade. In fairness, the dubious-sounding hustle had a few false starts. Ice, it turns out, has a tendency to melt. Thus, the first few years saw major financial losses. However, using techniques like packing the ice tighter and employing sawdust as natural insulation, Tudor found his groove around about 1810. Later on, after a brief stint in debtors’ prison, Tudor employed the time-honored sales tactics of a drug dealer by topping up his wealthy customer’s ice block orders—which they mainly used for cooling medicine and food—with some [free product]( encouraging people to try drinking their beverages on the rocks. It caught on, of course, and then he started charging them. In 1833—with his business booming and a much more efficient, horse-drawn plough technique for cutting ice in place—Tudor undertook the ambitious plan to ship ice to Calcutta, India, a [14,000 mile journey](. Investors were skeptical but an editorial in the India Gazette [thanked Tudor for making]( luxury accessible, by its abundance and cheapness.” Tudor’s success spurred global competition, thereby taking the ice trade global. Quotable “Drink, Spaniards, and be cool, that I, who have suffered so much in the cause, may be able to go home and keep myself warm.” — Frederic “The Ice King” Tudor’s [diary entry]( after making a delivery to Cuba. Giphy Brief history Making ice accessible --------------------------------------------------------------- 1845: John Gorrie of Florida invents the [first ice machine]( a refrigerator that creates small ice cubes. He is granted a patent in 1851. 1847: Ice is shipped to 28 US cities in large blocks. Delivery men chip off the desired weight with a pick. Mid 1800s: Wooden ice boxes become common [household items](. Previously, people relied on holes in the ground. 1868: The world’s first commercial ice plant [opens in]( New Orleans, Louisiana. The product is called “manufactured” or “artificial” ice so urbanite consumers can distinguish it from their usual natural block ice. 1883: In Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain [notes]( that manufactured ice is quickly replacing natural ice and compares the product to mass-market jewelry—once for the rich, now for everybody. 1920: According to the US [Census Bureau,]( the country’s 4,800 ice plants employ 160,000 people and produce 40 million tons of ice a year—750,000 blocks every day. Industries like seafood and farm produce boom as a result. 1930s: The first ice cube trays [are invented,]( perfect for the freezer compartments increasingly showing up in US homes. 1952: The first Holiday Inn hotel, in Memphis, Tennessee, [becomes the first]( to offer access to ice machines free of charge, complete with a bucket in every room. The practice caught on and became a notable quirk of American hotel culture. 1960s: Electric refrigerators, room air conditioners, and overland transportation cooling systems diminished the need for ice block manufacturing. Today it exists only in speciality forms (for ice sculptures and the like). This One Weird Trick! Earlier this year, Chinese researchers made [single-atom metals]( by freezing a reagent into an ice cube and letting it melt into a second, near-freezing solution. Because the ice melts so slowly, the atoms can’t precipitate into solids, and instead are suspended in water. Giphy Fun fact! “In 1860, there were four artificial-ice plants in the United States; in 1889, there were about two hundred; by 1909, there were two thousand.” — [The New Yorker]( take me down this 🐰 hole! The expanse of the empire --------------------------------------------------------------- Americans were so taken with ice cold water that when they went abroad, they expected it there as well. Conrad Hilton’s first generation of hotels built overseas in the 1950s and 60s—which he called [“Little Americas”]( tapped-in ice water as a unique selling point. Europeans found this to be a strange affectation, so much so that the owner of the Terminus Hotel in Dijon, France installed his own counter-luxury: tapped-in wine. “In America hotel rooms have three taps: hot, cold, and ice water. In Burgundy we consider ice water should be replaced by wine.” Fair enough. Watch this! Some people, it turns out, really love the sensation of chewing ice cubes. (Naturally, there are entire internet [message boards devoted to it]( Other people love the sound of ice being chewed, which is why this video entitled “Asmr Eating Igloo Ice” has been viewed more than 3.2 million times. DIY Make your own clear ice --------------------------------------------------------------- It’s much easier to make ice cubes at home these days, but home-produced ice tends to be cloudy, which means it isn’t the highest quality. The sign of high-quality ice—the kind favored by snooty bartenders making your $17 Old Fashioned—is clearness, like the icicles that drip off your house in January. Commercially, this is achieved by keeping water in motion as it freezes, which prevents any air being trapped in the ice as it cools. You can try it home, but it honestly sounds labor intensive. quotable “The American need for ice speaks to our obsession with refrigeration as an antidote to death, and to our heightened terror of perilous bacteria and spoiling food.” — [American novelist Heidi Julavits, in the New Yorker]( Giphy Poll To ice or not to ice? [Click here to vote]( I like it hot!Keepin' it lukewarmFrederic Tudor is my savior The fine print In yesterday’s poll on whether you’d try [krill]( meat, 37% of you said you couldn’t eat something “so majestic and wondrous” while 35% said you’ll try anything twice. 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