Ice cubes & ice accessories

Start with the way you want to make ice. A canvas Lewis bag with a wooden mallet gives you crushed ice that stays dry, because the cloth absorbs the meltwater as you strike. If instead you want to get large clear blocks out of a bigger piece, you use a saw and a pick. A pick with a single point is more accurate, a three-point version is faster but gives a rougher result.

Then choose a scoop that suits your ice bin. The sizes of 0.15 and 0.35 litre are meant for filling glasses during service, the 0.7 litre one for topping up the bin itself. A perforated scoop lets meltwater run back, which affects how quickly the ice starts diluting in the glass. Choose tongs on length and grip: eighteen centimetres is the usual size for a bar bin.

Never scoop up ice with your hands or a glass. A glass used as a scoop can break in the bin, ruining the entire batch. Use the scoop to fill and the tongs to place a single cube, such as the large cube in an Old Fashioned or a Negroni.

For crushed ice, fill the Lewis bag no more than halfway, fold the opening over twice, and strike it with the flat side of the mallet. Turn the bag over occasionally for an even texture. If you use a saw, let the block warm up outside the freezer for ten minutes first; otherwise, it may split unpredictably.

Rinse ice tools after service and dry them off. Stainless steel does not rust, but meltwater that dries on leaves limescale marks that are hard to remove later. Copper versions have a coating that wants hand washing, because it discolours in a dishwasher.

Wash the canvas Lewis bag at sixty degrees in the washing machine and air dry it, not in the tumble dryer. Keep wooden handles and mallets out of the dishwasher entirely, because wood swells and cracks once it repeatedly gets wet and dries again. It survives a single round, not twenty.

If you're looking only for tongs or only for scoops, the ice tongs and ice scoops are listed separately in the menu. If you want to freeze your own blocks in a fixed shape, see the ice cube molds. You'll find a wider range of crushers, picks, and saws under ice tools. And if you're looking for the glass that holds that large cube, the old fashioned glasses are ready.