I’ve posted a couple of articles about making ice spheres in the past (“Cutting spheres from ice” & “Carving a sphere, step-by-step”), but this is a bit different. In this case, the ice sphere practically makes itself. A Japanese company, Taisin, has come up with a small, elegantly simple, and nearly idiot proof machine that quickly makes small ice spheres. The machine, which has to be heated up a bit with hot water first, molds a chunk of ice into a nearly perfect sphere the same way an ice carver uses aluminum plate to make a flat surface.

    Unfortunately, the machine’s not cheap. According to the webpage, you’re looking at $169 for the mini machine (30mm ice balls), and $1130 for the larger sphere (55mm) machine. There are larger sizes (65, 70, & 80mm) listed too, but without pricing. You can also get other shapes for various prices, such as:

1. $1130 for a heart mold (65mm and called a herz on drop-down list)
   

2. $2330 for a 55mm soccer ball version (called a fussball on drop-down list)
   

3. $2430 for a 65 mm baseball mold
   

Finally, if you look at the image above, it looks like other shapes are possible as well.

    Okay, so let’s do the math. Given that I would like to have an ice ball mold that makes about 10” (254mm) spheres of ice, we’ll estimate a cost based on the info we have right now. Going from 30mm to 55mm means going from $169 to $1130, which is an increase of $38.44/mm. We need to go up 199mm in size, so we multiply, carry the 4, and divide by the square root of 87... There’s a better way to do this because it doesn’t look like this is a real linear relationship in the pricing, but the quick and dirty method means that I’m plunking down $8779.56 for a way to make 10 inch ice spheres practically automatically. Hmm. (oh, and did you know that “hmm” doesn’t trigger my spellcheck, but that “hm” and “hmmm” do? I don’t know what that means...) But I do know what $8779.56 means. It means I’ll be carving my my own 10 inch ice spheres for a while yet.

   “Why does this invention exist?,” you might ask. Is it because of constant requests from ice carvers around the world for a simple way to make very small ice spheres? Have all the ice bars around started adding mini ice pool tables and are constantly running out of pool balls? No, actually it’s because people drink too much, literally. Certain connoisseurs have decided that regular old ice dilutes their scotch (or other liquor of choice) too quickly. Because a sphere has the least surface area of any solid, it melts the slowest. So an ice ball will melt much slower than, let’s say, crushed ice, which has a relatively huge surface area. If it really catches on, the ice ball might well hold the potential to change the drinking lexicon. In the future, you wouldn’t say, “gimme a scotch on the rocks.” You’d say, “gimme a scotch, and make sure [insert your own inappropriate phrase here]”

    Here are a couple of videos that show the ice ball mold in action. Surprisingly, there actually is “action” and don’t worry if you don’t know Japanese; the important part of the video is the demonstration. (text continued below)

    Still think this is just a silly, overpriced novelty item? Here’s a couple of links that you might find interesting. Two large ice companies known for their marketing acumen, iceculture and Ice Caters, both sell ice balls, according to their respective websites. Although, if you look at the photo(s) on the pages, it looks like iceculture is the one with...the ice ball production capacity. My recollection was that iceculture had/has a machine that actually carves the ice balls instead of molding them, but I can’t find any info on this at the moment and I don’t know if that’s accurate or just the product of my imagination. Here are the relevant links:

    iceculture: http://www.iceculture.com/main.cfm?id=CB787366-347A-5051-283A5E3A5DF0E700

    Ice Caters: http://www.icecaters.com/SE/ccp4-prodshow/04-ICEBALL-20CT.html

When you click on the second link, you find out that Ice Caters charges $65 for a case that has twenty 2.5 inch ice balls. (Ice Caters calls them “iballs.”) So, Ice Caters charges $3.25 per ice ball! (**However, ice balls go for as little as $1.54 a piece wholesale; see the comment from Michael Shoer below) The price for the 55 mm (almost 2.2 inches, about .3 inch smaller than the “iball”) mold is $1130.00. If you buy the machine, after about 350 (or 734 for wholesale buyers) ice balls the machine pays for itself and looks really cool every time the bartender makes an ice ball for a guest!