Ice and dilution: the ingredient nobody measures

Water from melting ice is a quarter to a third of most finished cocktails. How chilling and dilution are linked, and how to control them.

Melted ice is part of every cocktail recipe even though no recipe lists it. A shaken Daiquiri ends up with roughly half as much water again as it started with; a stirred Manhattan gains around 40%. Without that water, strong drinks taste hot and harsh and sweet ones taste syrupy.

Chilling and dilution go together

Ice cools a drink mainly by melting: turning ice into water absorbs a large amount of heat. So you cannot make a drink colder without also diluting it. Shaking reaches a lower temperature than stirring, and therefore more dilution, in much less time. This is why the numbers on our drink pages depend on the method.

What size of ice?

• In the shaker or mixing glass: ordinary 2–3 cm cubes. Use plenty, straight from the freezer.
• In the glass for drinks sipped slowly: one large cube or sphere. Less surface area means slower melting.
• Crushed ice: for juleps, swizzles and tiki drinks that are meant to be very cold and to dilute as you drink.
• Highballs: fill the glass to the top. A glass full of ice melts more slowly than a few cubes floating in warm soda.

Making better ice at home

Ice picks up freezer smells: keep trays covered and use fresh ice. Clear ice can be made by "directional freezing": freeze water in a small insulated cool box with the lid off, so it freezes from the top down and the cloudy, air-filled part ends up at the bottom, where you cut it away.

Batching and dilution

For a batch you will pour straight from the fridge or freezer, add the water yourself. Our batch calculator works out how much from the same model.