Comments on: The Ice Program

By: richyvk

richyvk — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:54:47 +0000

Thank you for your fantastic writing, it’s just brilliant! I cannot believe they have male and female glaciers, that is just so bizarre!!

By: joe corsi

joe corsi — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:10:57 +0000

the champagne tower was surely mentioned in jest but it i think has more relevance here than it first seems. the idea of a theatrical alcoholic element in a restaurant/bar/party/etc. seems quite fitting. rather than maintain this glacier in the basement why not bring it upstairs and let it melt through out the night. people are constantly returning to the melting “glacier” to refill their glasses. the alcohol is already frozen into the mix, therefore this glacier has been frozen to subzero temperatures (-16F for 80 proof vodka). on a hot summer night this could be all the air conditioning a bar needs.

as brice mentioned the formal design of ice cubes or the glacier could be quite important. in designing this slow melting alcoholic glacier defining points of drip could be established as places for drinks to be refilled. or air pockets that become reservoirs (essentially a punch bowl) could be placed before the freezing process. as long as it doesn’t end up a giant ice swan i think it could work quite well.

By: Brice Linane

Brice Linane — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:49:01 +0000

Although I’ve never worked behind a bar, I find it difficult to imagine a bartender showing up early to work to carve, shape, or infuse mass quantities of ice cubes from a miniature glacier in the basement. With this said, it’s not difficult to imagine someone designing a machine intended to produce deceitful ice cubes (cheater ice). Rather than take the traditional route of “old fashioned” ice, I propose the implementation of designed ice cubes. With the potential to combat the gender issues discussed in this post and tap an entire underground culture of design (which I’ve only recently stumbled upon), designed ice has unlimited possibilities. Refer to the following links:

http://www.gogo-gadgets.co.uk/index.asp?function=DISPLAYPRODUCT&productid=732

http://www.notcot.com/archives/2006/10/lego_cocktail_p.php

http://www.notcot.com/archives/2010/01/the_macallan_ic.php

http://www.instructables.com/id/Tetris-Ice-Cubes/

On a more serious note, I feel slighted by this so called “cheater ice”. Unable to combat this issue, I’ve been forced to develop a strategy for quickly melting ice cubes …drinking faster. I’m not sure how the above information will be integrated into any of our projects but nevertheless, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

By: Merritt Palminteri

Merritt Palminteri — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:48:14 +0000

I am both enchanted and dismayed by the fetishization of ingredients in food, and now water/ice.

Imagine a gourmet Slushee: hand-carved slips of alkaline-free spring ice, harvested in early autumn, drizzled with Rainier Cherry syrup…

This post also prompted me to wonder about the origins of the shaved ice that supply all the little frio frio carts common in Brooklyn and Queens during the summer – it’s likely the ice machine at the local bodega. But what if there were a soft glacier in the dark of some Bushwick warehouse? What if the sno-cone ingredients were as closely sourced as their high-brow cocktail cousins?

By: Tim Maly

Tim Maly — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:33:38 +0000

Worth also digging back to the pre-refrigeration days when ice would be harvested from lakes, stored in great barns, and cut up and sold to keep iceboxes cold during the summer. Linking that into Pykrete seems to have some pretty promising implications, I think.

Especially if we don’t assume that we can throw BTUs at the refrigeration problem for the indefinite future.

By: john sidari

john sidari — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:32:42 +0000

great post. having worked behind a bar in my younger years, i am curious as to the spatial implications of ice (iceries??) and how the different types, forms, and formulas for ice create a whole new type of service experience. In blade runner, the Asian scientist harvesting eyeballs in the frozen laboratory comes to mind. would bartenders go behind bar, throw on their insulated lab coat and create or grow their ice forms to be used in service that night? would they re-emerge with frozen vessels that shift form as does temperature?

By: Nicole Seekely

Nicole Seekely — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:38:30 +0000

I'm reminded of an old "hillside ice factory" I was recently researching for Geoff's studio. The factory was a failure, only lasting a few years and bringing in little to no revenue for most of those years. While it should not be classified as a glacier, it did possess some of the characteristics needed for growing one. The conditions/strategies necessary for turning the nearby stream of water or snowmelt into ice are quite similar to that of an artificial glacier. It leads me to believe that if it were only built 150 years later, it might have been slightly more successful, living off the wallets of the elite that request only the most pure and customizable ice.

By: Tim Maly

Tim Maly — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:39:56 +0000

My family is from Newfoundland and harvesting iceberg bits that have sloughed off the actual full size bergs is a pretty common practice. You boat out, scoop some cooler-sized pieces out of the ocean, hose off the briny sea water, and take a hammer to the rest, cracking it up until it’s glass-sized. Store in a freezer and serve at parties.

The ice is clear and the water tastes pure but frankly the people melting it down to bottle are missing the point. The same trapped air that climate scientists use to reconstruct our environmental past is present in these bits, causing the ice to fizz lightly as it melts.

Combine that with the very subtle distinctions made between types of peat, makes of cask, banks of vineyard and the flavoured air at oxygen bars and a whole new front opens up in the high end drinks market.

The bar-made artificial glaciers suggest custom layerings of water and air that only the finest connoisseurs can truly appreciate. Sealed rooms with custom mixes pumped in. Carefully maintained pressure, bubble separation, and other factors, to be hand-carved into just the right shape.