Skip to main content

The Neat Ice Kit will Take Your Cocktail Game to the Next Level

If you’re looking to elevate your cocktail mixing game and move beyond amateur status, you need to learn how to make good ice. Nine times out of ten those cubes that come out of your freezer taste funky, and muddle the flavor of your hooch. Not to mention they melt like they’re in a hurry and turn your drink into diluted, watery abomination. So to help remedy this problem and help you make big, professional, perfectly-clear cubes, Studio Neat has developed a special kit.

The Neat Ice Kit consists of four parts — all the tools you need to make fantastic ice. There’s an insulated ice mold that facilitates directional freezing for a clear ice brick,  an ice chisel that you can use to split the ice in half, a durable canvas Lewis Bag for crushing up ice, and a mallet that helps break up ice chunks and doubles as a muddler. The only things you need to provide are are booze and a glass.

Recommended Videos

This definitely isn’t the first or only artisan ice kit on the market, but it’s also loads more fun than making your ice in a spherical mold. There’s just something so satisfying about chiseling off your own ice brick.

Drew Prindle
Drew is our resident tech nerd. He’s spent most of his life trying to be James Bond, so naturally he’s developed an…
Pair your leftover Halloween candy with bourbon cocktails
Because why not be a little decadent?
bowl of halloween candy with fall leaves

Now that Halloween is over and we're already racing toward Thanksgiving and Christmas, many of us have piles of old candy lying around. And while it can be tempting to graze lazily on it for weeks -- or to get fed up with the whole thing and just toss it -- why not have some fun and incorporate it into a cocktail pairing?

Normally when you talk about cocktail pairings it's in terms of selection high-quality food ingredients, carefully prepared to match or contrast with the bold flavors of a cocktail. There's a whole trend in the restaurant world for picking just the right wine, beer, or spirit to sit next to an exquisitely created and luxurious food dish, whether it's an appetizer, main, or dessert.

Read more
Classy tequila cocktails for your high-end agave spirits
Aim for simplicity and elegance for your best tequilas
Dark bar with a backlit cocktail on table

Tequila is a favorite spirit for drinks of all kinds, from college-era slammers to fun and fruity margaritas. But as drinkers have become more interested in tequila over the last decade, a new set of high-end tequila brands have arisen to show the best that this spirit can be, in terms of artisanal production and elegant presentation. If you do treat yourself to some high end tequila, though, what's the best way to drink it?

Many fine tequilas are great for sipping, but they can also be used in elevated cocktails. Rather than bold flavors of salt, lemon, and lime though, these cocktails tend to be more subtle and nuanced, to give the flavors of the tequila a chance to shine. These cocktails from 1800 Tequila are perfect for showing off the best of your high-end bottles.
1800 Spiced Cranberry Highball

Read more
Add some sparkle to your party with the glittering Goldfish Cocktail
Combine Goldwasser gold leaf liqueur with Cointreau, gin, and lemon juice for a delicious and celebratory drink
Goldfish Cocktail

When it comes to celebration drinks, we tend to go straight to one ingredient: Champagne. And while Champagne cocktails can indeed be delicious, they aren't the only way to celebrate. You can also find a variety of liqueurs which have a celebratory feeling, like Goldwasser, which is a herbal liqueur that has flakes of gold leaf floating in it. Don't worry -- the golf leaf is safe to consume -- but it does add a fun touch of sparkle to a drink.

The tricky part is finding a way to make a drink that still tastes great as well as looking good. This recipe, for a drink called a Goldfish, balances the herbal flavors of the Goldwasser with the robust orange peel flavor of Cointreau, and adds gin and lemon to give more botanical notes and citrus zing.

Read more