A man who has spent far too long thinking about ice is now making a business out of it.
Photo: Davina Zimmer
It's an essential component to any good bar drink, but how much attention do you pay to the ice in your glass?
If you're the average person, probably not much.
But it's something Conor Whale spent a lot of time thinking about during his years as a bartender.
"When I was in Melbourne, we had a really cool cocktail programe. For years, I had been making clear ice in the bar, which is a finicky, time-expensive ordeal to go through," he says.
Whale came across Navy Strength Ice, an Australian company that makes and sells clear ice, and started purchasing their stock instead of having his staff make it.
Not only was it a cheaper option, but it ensured a consistently high standard of presentation.
"Everything was perfectly square, everything was the exact same size, everything went out looking exactly the same.
"And that [consistency] is one of the most important things when it comes to hospitality, because if you go to your favourite venue and you have an Old Fashioned, you want that Old Fashioned to taste amazing. Then [if] you go away and come back the next week and it tastes different, it's disappointing," Whale says.
When Covid shut the world down, he came back to this side of the ditch and founded The Bar Society.
Conor Whale and Ivan the Ice Truck. Photo: The Bar Society
Now he sells ice cubes to more than 30 different vendors across the North Island - and is working on expanding this to deliver nationwide.
But what makes his ice so special?
"The standard ice that you would get in your freezer, when you look at it, it's got all your frosty bits in it, and that is essentially trapped air.
"That trapped air opens up what I call little veins to the exterior of the ice which allows temperature to get in, and the ice melts a little bit faster," Whale explains.
To make his ice, Whale uses a method known as directional freezing.
"If I was to put water in a mould and put that in the freezer, you're freezing it with cold energy (hitting it from) 360 degrees. So each outside face is going to freeze first and the inside remains liquid." he says.
Directional freezing essentially means the water gets frozen from one direction and the result is much denser ice that doesn't melt as quickly.
So while ice might not be on your mind when you take that first sip of a cocktail, Whale says it's an important part of any good drink, and using clear ice is the easiest and most cost-effective way for anyone to take it to the next level.
"You've got one guest who drinks cocktails in five minutes and another guest that sits on it for 20 minutes. You want it to taste as good as it can over that entire period of time. You don't want one person to get a really good-tasting cocktail and another person to get a really watered-down cocktail, just because they chose to drink it a little bit slower," he says.
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