Top 10 Genius Ideas to Jazz Up Your Ice-Cubes

Ice cubes are not just for cooling your drink down and making a nice clinking noise in your glass. You can infuse the ice with a huge range of flavours and colours, so when your guests take a sip of their drink they have a nice surprise waiting for them! An ice cube tray will cost you a just few pence and your imagination costs nothing. Here are some cool ideas to get you started using herbs and other ingredients that you can easily pick up at the supermarket or your local market stalls. Order in a mixture of spirits and mixers and the possibilities are endless.

Top 10 ideas for amazing ice cubes

Here are some quick and easy ideas to get you started. You can experiment and adapt them as you go along:

1. Celery leaves. The sharp, green celery leaves look fabulous in ice and make a Bloody Mary just perfect. Plonk in a stick of celery and swizzle it around to complete the look.
2. Sage and syrup. You can combine fresh sage leaves with agave syrup to make an ice cube that is highly fragranced. Serve the cubes with neat white spirits such as vodka to let the contrasting flavours escape as you drain the glass.
3. Swap it around with a liqueur. Mix water with a liqueur, such as creme de cassis, and freeze until solid. You can drop these into soda water, and the cocktail gets stronger as you drink it. The bottom of the glass tastes the best, so you always have something to look forward to!
4. Use the garden blooms. Did you know that some flowers are edible? You can eat nasturtiums and pansies, and both are so easy to grow; even in window boxes or in pots on a balcony. They look spectacular when they are frozen into an ice cube and retain their vibrant colour. Serve in a colourless drink such as a gin and tonic for maximum effect.
5. Go large with a baking tin. If you have a cup cake or muffin tin in your kitchen you can use it to make giant ice-cubes that you can add to pitchers of cocktails or bowls of punch. Simply place thinly sliced lemons, limes and oranges into the tins and fill with water before freezing.
6. You don’t need alcohol. You don’t have to miss out on the fun if you aren’t drinking spirits or cocktails. You can freeze fruit juices or limeade and add to sparkling water for a super refreshing drink on a hot day.
7. Find your inner child. Remember the gum worms that you loved as a kid? Well, you can still enjoy them if you freeze one (or two) into an ice-cube and drop it into a vodka and lemonade. Vodka and gummy worms – so much fun in one glass!
8. Watermelon coolers. You can make water melon ice cubes even if you do not have an ice cube tray. Simply cut the pink flesh into cubes and place on a plastic tray or plate. Cover with cling film and pop them in the freezer for 24 hours.
9. It’s not all about summer. You can make ice cubes part of your Christmas festivities as well. Pop a few cranberries into water to make vibrant, festive ice cubes that are perfect for a Christmas punch.
10. Halloween gruesome ice cubes. Halloween is the time to introduce some scary ice cubes. All you have to do is make a small hole in a radish and poke in some pimento stuffed olives. You have eyeball ice cubes staring at you from the bottom of your glass! Add them to a vodka martini for the adults and to some lemonade for the kids!

You can make up your own ideas and experiment with all sorts of herbs and vegetables. The ice cubes will last for several weeks in your freezer. Then all you have to do is wash out the ice cube tray and start all over again!