My grandmother didn’t like ice in her drinks. She preferred boiled water that had cooled to room temperature, stored in an insulated bottle. Or a cup of hot tea.
I haven’t embraced room-temperature water, yet. But I am coming around to her attitude about ice in drinks. The ice interferes.
For entertaining insight into this, there’s Why Do Russians Hate Ice?, a blog posting from 2011 by Alina Simone at nytimes.com
“If you were born in the Soviet Union and are of a certain age, ice is your enemy,” Simone reports. She hit the streets to pose the question, “Why do Russians hate ice?”
Some of my thinking on ice:
— Ice dilutes the drink. You get less for your money.
— Ice dominates. The drink — orange juice, soft drink, mineral water — fades to the background, and your tongue is numbed by the cold.
— Ice can have a funkiness, adding an unwanted foreign essence.
— Have you seen where ice sometimes comes from? Namely, scooped from a bucket that hasn’t been washed in gosh knows how long.
— But ice is necessary to make a good smoothie.
When I ask for a drink with no ice, restaurants and bars have been happy to oblige. The request must be frequent, because there is never a quizzical look, or a sigh of annoyance.
I once received a drink in a smaller-than-normal glass when I asked for no ice. It was a premium soda pop. At the same place, plain old Coca-Cola came in the larger standard glass when I asked for no ice.
But at a fast food place — where there was a no-ice button on the cash register — my no-ice Coke came in a small cup, even though I asked for medium.
With self-serve drink fountains becoming common place at fast food restaurants and convenience stores, that’s less of an issue. When you fill your cup, you decide whether ice goes in it.
A compromise is the big ice cube, which melts slower, thus diluting less, while still providing a chill. You can buy, for example, the Tovolo King Cube Ice Tray.
I’m not necessarily recommending it. I found it when I did a search for “big ice cube” on Google.
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Previous posts:
A whiff of marijuana from a passing car
My favourite ways for making Internet searches more precise
The many ways websites reject you
Dissecting B.C. Hydro's two-tier rate
Exploring the weather around Greater Victoria
