[Product] Shard
Taking your cocktails to the next level involves getting quality ingredients. Though, a better way to think of ingredients is as components. You shouldn’t just think about the booze in your glass, but what about your glass itself? How’s your garnish? Is there something else you can do to up your cocktail game? Importantly: how’s your ice? If you’re drinking something simple (read, easy to get wrong) in an old-fashioned glass, you’re going to want some clear ice to compliment that. To help build a better cocktail, there’s Shard — helping you get clear ice for your cocktails.
Shard sent us over one of their early models so we could test its clear ice building ways. How was it? Not too shabby!
We tested it with a bottle of Evian (we had it, so I figured that we might as well go extra fancy). I remember reading online about how it’s the impurities in water — amongst other things — that help contribute to cloudy ice. Might as well reduce those using some bottled water.
After we put the water into the plastic mold, then into the Shard freezer container of clear ice glory (I’m sure it has a more technical name, but I enjoyed mine), then into the freezer, we had nothing to do but wait around for it to freeze.
Following the instructions, we waited a couple of days for the ice to freeze, the cloudiness to disperse and the magic of clear ice to appear. When we unmolded it, lo and behold, it did indeed work! They mentioned to us with that with the early developer model we had, they expected the top 40 (ish) percent to be clear and it was.
When we tested it later with tap water, our results weren’t quite as good as with the Evian, but it still produced some clear ice that we could break off with an ice pick.
Really though, when it comes to upping your cocktail game, what’s a little bit of money for nice water to make awesome ice? Plus, then you can just let it melt and drink it!
If you, my fine friend, would also like to take this opportunity to procure some clear ice for yourself at your very own home, you can help them get funded on Kickstarter! Go visit their page, see what they have to say, watch the video demo, read their story and get inspired for your very own clear ice.
