Not just frozen water: The growing business (and high price tag) of clear ice cubes

Chris Vandegrift donned noise-canceling headphones and safety glasses, positioned himself behind a 300-pound block of ice, and switched on the industrial bandsaw. Noah Sokoloff held the block steady as fine snow sprayed in all directions.

The two co-owners of the new Philadelphia Craft Ice company were in the painstaking process of making 2-inch ice cubes — but not the cloudy, low-brow kind you get from a freezer mold. Their ice is absolutely clear. It shimmers like a mountain creek and looks like a diamond, especially when carved in the shape of a diamond.

Sokoloff and Vandegrift’s meltable product takes roughly three days plus a host of water filters and industrial freezers and razor-sharp bandsaws to get from tap water to final product.

Such ice has become an obsession in the cocktail world in recent years, a reality which Sokoloff and Vandegrift are hoping to both capitalize on and further spur, first among Philadelphia’s upscale bars and soon among the masses. The company started selling cubes for 70 cents each at the beginning of September, and already has accounts with Martha and Post Haste in Kensington and Devon Seafood Grill in Rittenhouse Square.

They hope clear ice — stamped with a logo or pressed with brass plates to look like a honeycomb — will one day become the standard.

“When a lot of people have been making their ice for free, I’m trying to tell them on the benefits of adding the clear ice to the cocktails,” said Sokoloff, 41, who is a bit of a ice nerd. Before founding the company, he used to transport clear ice cubes for events from Washington to Philadelphia in a cardboard box packed with dry ice.

He argues that clear ice makes drinks taste better, dilutes a cocktail more slowly, and looks prettier, too. Because it’s an extraordinarily labor-intensive process, only a few bars in Philly use it regularly; Sokoloff sees an opening for a company to sell it relatively affordably on a large scale.

His ice evangelism appears to be working; it has even inspired some new aesthetic aspirations. Martha’s chef has become “very excited about the idea of freezing a Slim Jim in one of the clear ice cubes,” said Daniel Miller, the general manager at Martha. (Sokoloff is now working to perfect freezing things inside cubes).

In a typical ice tray, a thin layer of ice forms on top and air bubbles get trapped inside, which makes ice look cloudy. The Craft Ice machine constantly circulates water at the top of the tank, which allows air bubbles to escape. Sokoloff then cuts and discards the cloudy top layer, leaving behind a giant block of perfectly transparent ice.

“It’s easy to say people’s desires for these things are absurd or a mark of a society going into decline,” said Cait Lamberton, a Wharton professor who studies luxury products. “But the truth is that people always seek ways to make their lives a little bit more beautiful and a little bit more enjoyable.”

In a crowded marketplace, small touches allow bars to differentiate themselves and charge a premium for their product, Lamberton said. At the same time, people with deep expertise about whiskey, for example, come to notice even small differences between products. (Air bubbles cause ice to melt faster, which especially matters if you’re drinking a $500 bottle of scotch). During the pandemic, when many people began mixing cocktails at home, interest in clear ice spiked. Now that people are back in bars, they want the same luxury, Lamberton said.

A few pioneering Philly bars have been crafting their own clear ice for years. The Franklin Mortgage & Investment Company, which has been selling cocktails with clear ice for 14 years, used to buy its cubes from a D.C. company for 75 cents a cube, operating partner Jason Elliott said.

Then, during COVID, the price went up to $2 a cube.

Elliott bought a butcher saw and a chest freezer and now every few weeks sources a giant block of clear ice, soon to be delivered by Philadelphia Craft Ice. Franklin’s head bartender and whomever he can wrangle then chops it to pieces in the basement; bartenders stamp the Franklin logo on with brass.

Customers love it, Elliott said, and have come to expect it.

“It can be a problem when someone wants cheap whiskey,” he joked. “The cube costs more than the whiskey.”

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if clear ice makes a drink taste better or dilutes it more slowly, Lamberton said.

“What needs to be the case for this to succeed is that people feel that it is a little bit special,” said Lamberton. “That it completes an experience that they don’t have every day.”