Making an ice ball at The Violet Hour

I was trying to free up some room on my hard drive the other day and I came upon some video I shot last year for an Atlantic story I wrote on cocktail ice. The story focused in part on the ice program at The Violet Hour in Chicago. (The original story is posted here.) As part of my intensive research regimen, I spent a little time in the bar's kitchen, where, in between cocktail temperature taking and ice block weighing, I watched Andrew Mackey sculpt an ice ball (or ice chunk, as they call it) in a little over a minute with just a block of ice and a serving spoon. Here's the patchy, unedited footage:

After being roughed out, the ball was then left out for a time at room temperature to soften the angles and make it glossy, then stored in the ice freezer until being summoned for duty in an old-fashioned glass. (Bonus tip: That's a latex glove over a wool glove he's wearing on his left hand.)

Comments

[Tony Harion]

Great video, glad you didn´t delete it!
The ice he uses looks pretty soft and easy to shape.
I´m assuming they don’t make the blocks themselves, am I right?

[Wayne Curtis]

They do make their own ice. The freezer he got the block out of is the ice freezer, used exclusively for ice to avoid imparting any tastes. I didn't notice what the temperature setting was to make the ice so nicely chippable.

Wayne