Ice can be a cool research subject

Books explore history, art of making cocktails.

Ordering a drink on the rocks is commonplace these days, yet less than a century ago ice was a luxury product and a sign of status. The crystalline solid is the subject of two new books.

In “Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks — A Cool History of a Hot Commodity” (Putnam, $29, June 6), Amy Brady examines American history through ice, which people only learned to make about 150 years ago. And, Camper English delves into achieving clear ice for cocktails in “The Ice Book: Cool Cubes, Clear Spears, & Other Chill Cocktail Crafts” (Red Lightning Books, $19, May 23).

In an engaging narrative, Brady weaves historic, political, culinary, sports and business details that illuminate how ice helped shape American life. The book’s diverse characters include ice cream-obsessed Fidel Castro, Zamboni drivers, “shaker boys” in New Orleans and Frederic Tudor, known as America’s first “ice king.” Tudor was a businessman who created a demand for ice by shipping it to areas where it didn’t occur naturally.

Brady also examines the consumerism of ice — from luxury commodity, to ice men delivering to ice boxes in homes, to refrigerators and freezers humming in our kitchens. Brady’s research looks to the future as well, touching on cryotherapy and energy-saving technology needed in a changing climate.

Brady also notes how ice is becoming extravagant again in cocktail culture. Whether cracked, molded, carved or chipped, ice can transform a drink into art. Brady relied on fellow ice-book author English for the drink historian’s help with research on

upscale ice.

English’s “The Ice Book” celebrates, with practicality, the renaissance ice age in which we live. He has researched clear ice since 2009, documenting and sharing his findings with the bar world.

Ice is made clear largely for aesthetics, but clear ice also contains fewer impurities and melts at a slower rate — bonuses when it comes to the art of the cocktail. “Crystal-clear, high-quality ice is somewhere between food and a tool,” English writes.

He provides guidance on how to create the clearest cube, the sparkliest sphere and the most dazzling of diamonds by cutting and shaping ice, with a main focus on directional freezing. Experimentation led to the discovery that clearer ice can be produced by encouraging water to freeze in one direction, rather than from the outside in toward the center. There are various ways to increase clarity, too.

The book provides inspiration for upping your cocktail game, whether completely nerding out on making the clearest, purest form of ice, or dispelling the urban legend that simply boiling water makes clear ice. There also are cocktail recipes sprinkled throughout.

If you read either book, you never will view the ice in your cocktail the same way again, and I doubt you will take ice on demand for granted.

COURTESY OF CATE BARRY PHOTOGRAPHY Author Amy Brady writes about how profoundly ice shaped our history and culture.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF RED LIGHTNING BOOKS Ice was transformative for American life. Two books dive into research as clean and clear as the state of matter.

COURTESY OF CATE BARRY PHOTOGRAPHY Amy Brady is the author of the new book, “Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks — A Cool History of a Hot Commodity.’’

Camper English delves into technique and achieving clear ice for cocktails in “The Ice Book: Cool Cubes, Clear Spears, & Other Chill Cocktail Crafts.”