Ice is indispensable for drinks on such extremely hot days. Just looking at a drink served at a bar with ice picks and cracked ice makes you feel cool.
Not only will you feel cooler, but also a little richer!
Although not quite as cool as the ice picks used at bars, Daiso, a 100 yen store, sells ice trays that can be used to make larger ice cubes with a "crackling" effect. On the front of the package, there is a message that reads, "Huge! You can easily make Kachiwari ice! on the front of the package. But can this ice tray really be used to make ice cubes? And how cool will a drink with ice in it make you feel? We actually purchased an ice tray and gave it a try.
I purchased an ice tray that can make three ice cubes at once. Considering that a typical ice tray of the same size can produce 10 to 14 pieces of ice, you can see that the size of ice that can be produced by this ice tray is 3 to 5 times larger than that of a regular ice tray.
Ice tray package for cracked ice
When you open the package, you will see three ice-making holes on the main unit with a design that looks like cracked ice. It seems to work by filling it with water and freezing it to produce crackling-like ice. When you fill the package with water and close the lid, water will spill out of the ice tray, so you need to set it up in a place where it is not allowed to get wet.
Fill the ice tray with water, place it in the freezer, and wait for 5 hours. Kachiwari-style ice is ready. The shape of the finished ice looks just like that. The ice is not really broken with an ice pick, but is shaped to resemble it, so it may look a little deliberate, but once it is in the drink, it does not bother me. The size is passable enough. The glass is heavy on the hand that holds it, and this weight makes you feel strangely cool.
It's a bit like "Ayers Rock".
It's heavy in the glass and cool to the eye?
So, we found that the Daiso ice tray can make ice that is (reasonably) soft to the touch, and that the weight of the ice makes the drink feel cooler in your hand.
The ice we made this time turned out to be pure white, but we heard that if you make ice with hot water of about 40 degrees Celsius, you can make clear and beautiful ice. If you are particular about that, it might be interesting to try it. Putting clear ice in a glass may make it look one more level cooler.
The price, of course, is 108 yen.
By the way, I also bought this glass at Daiso!
