Crushed ice
Maximum surface area — instant cold, fast dilution, and frost on the glass.
- Size
- Irregular chips, roughly 3–10 mm
- In this collection
- 23 cocktails
What it does to a drink
Breaking ice up multiplies its surface area enormously without changing its mass, and heat crosses that surface. So crushed ice chills almost on contact — which is what frosts the outside of a julep cup — and dilutes correspondingly fast. That dilution is a feature here, not a cost: a julep or a swizzle is built strong precisely because the ice is going to soften it as you drink.
Use it for
Juleps, swizzles, tiki drinks, anything served with a straw and a mound of ice above the rim. Also the answer whenever a recipe says "pack the glass".
Don’t use it for
Spirit-forward drinks meant to stay sharp. Crushed ice in an Old Fashioned gives you a watery Old Fashioned within minutes.
Making it at home
A Lewis bag and a mallet. Canvas wicks away the meltwater as you strike, so what comes out is dry chips rather than slush — and dry ice chips are what makes a drink frost properly. A tea towel and a rolling pin is the same idea, less neatly.
Worth knowing
Blenders make wet, half-melted ice. It works in a pinch and it is visibly worse; the drink dilutes before it reaches the glass.