Cold Hard Facts
In Praise of Ice
Ice is cold. We know this. But we should take a moment to appreciate ice’s greatness. I like ice. Ice makes good things better and bad things less bad, which really recommends it. If you haven’t thought about ice in a while then you haven’t been on a boat with a subpar cooler.
Ice is also beautiful. A block of ice is startling in its clarity and depth. It’s self-contained but mysterious and vast, like the night sky in miniature. I never saw a block of ice—you don’t see them often—until I arrived at Libby Camps in the Maine North Woods. Your cabin has a cooler outside and there’s one block inside waiting when you arrive. It lasts as long as your stay.
They cut them from the lake in front of the camp on the first weekend in January. Their chainsaws are dipped in olive oil so they don’t get stuck. Then they fill the ice house with these huge blocks, using the same tongs made by the founder, three or four generations ago. Then they cover the top row with cedar chips. They only lose a row to melting over the entire summer.
Maine is good with ice. Incidentally, LL Bean, about four hours south of Libby Camps, designed their tote bag to carry one large block of ice. This explains a lot and I find this very satisfying. Ice is commerce. In the 1800s clear ice was delivered from New England (usually cut from ponds) all the way to the various parts of the British empire. People made serious money from this ice. Clear ice was more valuable because it was safe to drink and could be used in gin.
The Commerce Inn in the West Village has a block of ice delivered to their bar each night. It’s lovely. They chip off it for the good drinks (the famous milk punch) and the cocktails. A martini must be cold, of course. Gin from the freezer is good, but somehow gin stirred furiously with ice becomes diabolically colder and even better. Miller Lite partisans know the cans must be deadly cold or its already delicate appeal will plummet.