It’s hot. You seek relief by way of an iced drink, only to find that the ice has melted before your very eyes and transformed the once-perfect refreshment into an insipid watery version of its former self. Ice melting in water is fine, but ice melting in iced coffee, for instance, makes for a diluted beverage that gets worse the longer it takes to drink. What to do? It really couldn’t be simpler: don’t make ice with plain water, try these flavored ice cubes!
1. For Iced Coffee
Ice cubes for iced coffee can be made in a few ways. You can make ice cubes with regular-strength coffee and add it to your chilled coffee. You can also make espresso ice cubes and add them directly to milk/milk alternative to create the opposite experience of iced coffee; the more the ice melts, the stronger the coffee gets.
2. For Iced Tea
You can make straight tea ice cubes, but you can also make lemon and honey ice cubes that will tart up and sweeten your drink as they melt. Adding some lemon pieces to the ice is pretty, too (just make sure you use organic lemons or scrub the rinds well first). Also, play around with any other flavors you like with tea; grated ginger, peach slices, rose petals… the possibilities are almost endless.
3. For Punch
Any proud 1950s housewife with a perky punch bowl probably knew her away around an ice mold; a fine art that went the way of cheese balls and deviled ham pinwheels. But it’s festive and brilliant.
Start with a small Bundt pan or muffin tin or whatever container you have that would make a nice mold, and fill it with a mix of ingredients that will be featured in the punch, then freeze. For a punch bowl, it is better to use bigger mold rather than an ice-cube tray, since the punch will be at room temperature longer and cubes will melt more quickly. Do be careful of decreasing the ice’s ability to freeze by adding too much booze; do not be afraid to add pretty fruit to the mold before freezing to make it even more decorative.
