If you are into fancy looking cocktails this product makes sense. Making clear ice cubes at home is not easy.
The end of civilization costs $5
Submitted 15 hours ago by FenrirIII@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/08689daa-f9f4-4eb7-b921-6f6335648d5f.jpeg
Comments
e8d79@discuss.tchncs.de 14 hours ago
terranoid@lemmy.cafe 14 hours ago
If you are into making fancy cocktails then you can get into making fancy ice
chazwhiz@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
You can make these arguments about literally any prepackaged product. I’m not defending this ice, but come on. You can make anything yourself, so long as you have the equipment, time, and money. Paying for someone else to have done it for you is about convenience, and is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 hours ago
If you’re into making fancy ice, then you can get into making your own purified water using complete combustion. If you’re into making purified water with complete combustion then can get into making your own hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. If you’re into making your own hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen then you can get into making your own universe.
BarrelAgedBoredom@lemmy.zip 11 hours ago
I have a very well stocked home bar and enjoy making fancy cocktails. My tiny ass freezer barely has room for the 5lb bag of ice I keep in there, let alone space for a fuckin mini cooler to make clear ice in. I also lack prep space to carve ice in my kitchen. You can make fancy drinks without fancy ice. It’ll still taste the sam, it just won’t look as pretty in the glass
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago
It emphatically is easy… But a clear ice mold for the less than 5 dollars and make unlimited cubes.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 12 hours ago
You just need to keep the water agitated and they sell machines specifically for this that would pay for themselves in no time over buying pre-made fancy ice cubes.
lime@feddit.nu 12 hours ago
you can also freeze the ice in an insulated container with no lid. that makes air bubbles and impurities collect at the bottom, after which you can cut that part off.
dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
No this is bunk.
The answer is directional freezing. Put the mold for the thing you want to be clear in a small cooler (or buy an insulated mold thing), be sure there is a hole in the bottom, fill it with water and put it in your deep freezer. Voilà clear ice for whatever purpose.
You don’t need to agitate it or boil it or use special water, just use physics and you’re all set.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Isn’t this the reason for using hot water to make ice?
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
A bartender I worked with made his in a little igloo cooler, of course then you one big block that you have to cut into functionally-sized cubes. But he would also do cool shit like suspend pine needles into it the block so each cube had a little sprig coming out of it after they were frozen and cut.
ddplf@szmer.info 14 hours ago
You don’t need a separate production chain made specifically for your homemade drink to look fancy on your auntie’s photo!
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 hours ago
Believe it or not some of us like pretty things to enjoy for ourselves, not to put on social media.
And big clear ice melts more consistently in a way that better maintains coldness longer while maintaining a slower pace of dilution. It does make a difference to flavor.
chaogomu@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
I’d view it as handy thermal mass, useful when shipping other frozen items.
That box is a bit easier to stack than a bag of ice like most other grocery stores have.
And much more expensive.
skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
Isn’t it as simple as just boiling the water and then freezing it?
blackbelt352@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
No. You need to freeze in in an insulated container with only one side exposed so it all freezes in 1 direction. Impurities get pushed to the opposite side and you are left with clear ice.
Mwa@thelemmy.club 12 hours ago
why is it hard to make?
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
To get clear ice you have to freeze it slowly, basically just at the freezing mark (32°C/0°F) which is a warmer temperature than most people have their freezer set to. It’s not difficult in an objective sense, it just requires rubbing a couple of brain cells together and a tiny morsel of effort which is apparently more than a lot of people can muster.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 12 hours ago
I’d drink pisswater ice before I’d pay 5$ for 4 fucking ice cubes.
lugal@sopuli.xyz 11 hours ago
Why would I buy frozen ice cubes? I have no time to microwave, I’d rather buy fresh ones
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
I have fresh ice cubes every day, so I literally had a tap of the stuff installed in my kitchen.
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
You need to try the grass fed free range ice cubes.
CallMeAl@piefed.world 15 hours ago
My store also have Unfrozen Ice Cubes
GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 14 hours ago
Americans buy water in plastic jugs??
crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 hours ago
Not always. Sometimes we buy them in little plastic bottles in packs of 24-48!
ExtraPartsLeft@piefed.zip 14 hours ago
Some towns still get water to their houses through leaded pipes. This is the most economical way for those people to get water. Others don’t trust their water even if it technically meets EPA standards. And some places just have water that tastes really bad.
Most of America gets water from a tap and maybe filters it.
AmyAye@nord.pub 14 hours ago
What, you Europers just drink it from the ground? Where the dirt is? Like savages?
Ariselas@piefed.ca 5 hours ago
Sometimes it’s safer that way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis
LogicalDrivel@sopuli.xyz 13 hours ago
Only artisanal wooden buckets for you then?
Pat_Riot@lemmy.today 13 hours ago
Mine comes from 347 feet below my yard.
dingus@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Have you never heard of such a concept? Some people do it because they are going camping or in case the water goes out in a storm or rarely if the water from the tap is of dubious quality.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
I happen to live where the tap water is excellent. It’s from ancient, underground aquifers. The only issue is a little bit high arsenic, which I filter out, but that’s not really necessary, I’ve been told.
It’s not sustainable, eventually the water will run out, but for now, it’s pretty good.
So, no, this American doesn’t buy water in plastic jugs.
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 hours ago
I need to get a bunch of “fresh, never frozen” stickers to put on bagged ice.
Sunshine@reddthat.com 10 hours ago
“Vegan” stickers on a bag of ice would be silly
Slovene85@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
Why don’t they just put these things into the ocean and solve global warming?
thebustinater@lemmy.zip 5 hours ago
ONCE AND FOR ALL!!
osanna@lemmy.vg 5 hours ago
Bad news, everybody!
orenj@leminal.space 6 hours ago
if i saw these i’d leave them in the bread section
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 7 hours ago
What the fuck… My co worker put a video of this… On snap like 11 hours ago from Aldi’s. Like, this could be a screen grab of it.
They’re 4 square cubes of clear ice and Aldi wants like $5 for them.
hansolo@lemmy.today 1 minute ago
Bro, I’ll mail you 4 for $4. You just freeze it again once it shows up. HMU if interested.
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
These work so much better than the unfrozen ice cubes they sold last week.
rmean@feddit.org 15 hours ago
“Enlarged to show detail”?? Wow
OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Title of your sex tape
Siegfried@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Ultra pure slow melting… ok… it melts just like regular water
Tronn4@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Extra micro plastics infused for the smooth slower melt
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Though if you’re using a plastic ice cube tray to make ice cubes, there’s a good chance you’re bringing your own microplastics.
Source: got a metal ice cube tray and noticed that weird “old ice” flavour and subtle sheen on the drink surface as it melted is no longer there.
humorlessrepost@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Probably a true claim, because surface area
Zomg@piefed.world 7 hours ago
It’s to minimize surface area, making water dilution in cocktails a slower process. An ice sphere would be ideal for this but it’s better than ice from your freezer in that specific task.
Grass@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
We need to kill the billionaires and their politicians sooner than immediately right now
Luisp@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 hours ago
Wait until the find out about refrigerators
bklyn@piefed.social 12 hours ago
You people are idiots
PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Lol I saw these at my Aldi too. It’s pretty dumb at first but I have seen ice cubes for sale at liquor stores for making mixed drinks.
Regular tap water usually doesn’t make perfectly clear ice and most trays are a lot smaller than 1.8" cubes. I wonder if the tray is reusable? If you were planning on a cocktail night and knew what you were looking for, this might not be as dumb of a buy as you think, especially if it was a one-time need.
It just looks especially silly at Aldi, a grocery store that prides itself on affordable products and doesn’t sell liquor lol
Brkdncr@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Tap water can make clear ice. It’s a matter of how it’s chilled.
CannedYeet@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Yeah, you want it to freeze on one end first to push out the bubbles. And even then it just pushes the bubbles to one end so you’d have to chip/cut away at them if you want perfectly clear ice.
I have molds for that style ice cube and I can’t be arsed to use them, let alone care about the bubbles.
WalrusDragonOnABike@reddthat.com 14 hours ago
I wonder if the tray is reusable?
The trays to make clear ice usually have a compartment that’s sacrificial (where the non-clear part of the ice goes and is cut off) from what I’ve seen.
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 hours ago
Yeah, there’s no better way than directional freezing. Either you freeze big old slabs in a way that pushes the dissolved gases (and many dissolved solids) away from the crystal structure of slowly freezing ice and then cut it after the fact, or you directionally freeze something that has an outlet to push the gases down so that you pull the frozen ice from the top compartment before the bottom compartment freezes.
adarza@piefed.ca 14 hours ago
one big cube won’t melt nearly as fast as several smaller ones, so your ‘beverage’ won’t get watered-down as much.
and yea. it is a silly item for aldi. might just be one of those “we’ll see if it sells or not” things. they often have odd things there that never come back.
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today 15 hours ago
$5 for four cubes?!? Maybe if they were as big as my cooler.
homes@piefed.world 14 hours ago
Welcome to the new Golden Age
AmyAye@nord.pub 14 hours ago
Some filks apparently don’t know you can buy a 20lb bag of ice for like, a dollar, outside of every gas station.
ilillilillilillililli@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
A dollar?! Those bags are $5.99 + tax now. 🫠
HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 hours ago
You don’t get the giant cubes the fancy folks like at the gas station. These are those giant cubes you use for whiskey and shit. Personally if I was into that I’d just buy the stainless steel cubes you can just freeze
krisevol@lemmus.org 8 hours ago
Those stainless steel ones don’t keep your drink cold very long, and you actually want water in whisky.
iamthetot@piefed.ca 12 hours ago
Most people who drink whisky on the rocks, for example, aren’t going to want to do it on that ice.
Bruhh@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
I thought these were reusable freeze packs made to look like ice cubes. It’s actual ice…
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 hours ago
Tell me more about how freezing water is the end of civilization.
Just because people are paying a premium for it doesn’t make it any worse than the bags of ice at the grocery store.
Ice was one of the first things humans used to keep things cold, and was super important on the path to refrigeration and freezing.
While I know a lot of technologies are overused, and capitalism twists them to disgusting ends, but refrigeration is a massive boon for making food last longer. Most American families just have ones far larger than they need and as such they end up wasting food instead of getting fresh food regularly and using it all up before it goes bad in the fridge. I personally enjoy a small fridge.
Also, freezers and refrigeration are an integral part of the medical sciences.
Anyway, personal opinion, this is pretty innocuous compared to like, jet travel between Seattle and Portland.
homes@piefed.world 14 hours ago
2-pack of 6-cube silicon large ice-cube trays::
$9.99 on Amazon
noxypaws@pawb.social 2 hours ago
downvotes cuz thats not gonna produce clear ice
CannedYeet@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
If the packaging is a reusable mold then this makes sense.
Simulation6@sopuli.xyz 12 hours ago
At one time I owned some brightly colored, ping pong ball sized refreezable drink coolers. They were plastic and good for slightly less then one drink. Someone actually bought them at a yard sale I had.
zipsglacier@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
I started using an insulated lunch cooler in the freezer to make clear ice. Its great!!!
DrBob@lemmy.ca 12 hours ago
How does that work?
zipsglacier@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
The key to clear ice is that it freezes from the top down. The cooler insulates the sides and bottom.
EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 hours ago
Slowly.
Seriously.
All you need is to make the ice freeze slowly, and when it’s all frozen you just melt off the not clear part and you’ve got clear cubes.
You could also set your freezer to just below freezing and achieve similar results.
Kanda@reddthat.com 1 hour ago
Ah, yes frozen ice