Gläce Luxury Ice 5 pack
Andrew Hyde is in town and hosted a TechStars meetup tonight at 21st Amendment in San Francisco. A bunch of people showed up including Roberto Sequeira, founder of Gläce Luxury Ice, a company that produces a perfectly spherical, 2.5″ premium ice cube that sells in packages of 5 ice spheres for $40, which is $8 per ice cube.
Until tonight, I had no idea there was even a market for premium ice cubes.
photos by Scott Beale
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
*Perfectly* spherical? Oh, come, come now…
Still, $8 a cube^H^H^H^Hsphere? WOW. I’m hunting eBay for spherical ice trays as I type. :D
They should have made them smaller. 2.5 inches is jawbreaker size. What’s the fun of having an $8 dollar piece of ice if you can’t crunch on it?
Hmm, looks like they’re not perfect… I see a seam on them, even in the shots on their own website. You can make spheres like that with the $5 plastic molds from Daiso or Muji.
These molds make apparently seamless spheres of ice:
http://www.cscoutjapan.com/en/index.php/perfect-ice-for-perfect-drinks-from-taisin/
But still, at a pretty price ($178 US).
First, Hi Andrew.
Seconnd, “Until tonight, I had no idea there was even a market for premium ice.” – Ummmmm. There isn’t, unless you count Slurpees.
That is me there with the drink. Surprisingly fun to have a ball of ice in your drink to roll around. Have to be honest and didn’t really notice the taste difference, but putting the ball in the drink caused some loud and fun cracks.
Don’t know about $8, but there is a market somewhere, right?
I guess the point is for only 1 big cube per drink jason… But this is ridiculous. If someone has actually purchased these cubes its no wonder the world is in a financial crisis. A less than a pennies worth of water sold for 100 times its value! With some genius marketing I guess these guys can make some serious profit margins…
nothing screams douchebag quite like an 8 dollar ball of ice
i wanna know how many they’ve sold. and if they’ve sold them all to these guys http://www.dallasobserver.com/2007-11-29/news/douchebags-in-the-mist
Idiotic beyond belief.
The idea is, the spherical shape and size creates the least amount of surface area, thus dilution, for an equivalent amount of crushed or cubed ice. Limiting dilution will maintain the intended flavor of your drink longer.
Craftsman bartenders have been doing this by hand for a long time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnaYVigZ7cU
And there’s also the Taisin Ice Ball Mold:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYENkTpT0uw&feature=related
There probably *shouldn’t* be a market for this.
Or, go the Alton Brown method and make your own with latex balloons. I’ve used them for bowls of punch to great effect.
I understand the need for these and that many REAL mixologists have been carving their own similar spherical ice for some time now. I also agree, this is the “douchiest” item to come along in quite some time….hence my real problem with this post:
Why would you,Scott, give this guy ANY mention, based on your otherwise usually high standards?
the only way I’d buy an $8 ice cube is if it had drugs inside.
Is it glacier ice? That business has been around for a while:
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/02/us/alaska-journal-marketing-glacier-ice-is-a-hot-new-industry.html
if it’s just round ice – um – no.
if this can be done, surely there is way to make my balls spherical
Wouldn’t a large ball like that tend to crack from the temperature differential when you put it into your drink? If it rapidly splits into several pieces, or develops deep fissures, there’s not much point in its starting out spherical.
Certainly a huge waste of money – you can make your own ice (and in any shape you want).
You know you’re addicted to conspicuous consumption when…