Post #800843 by Dr. Coruba on Fri, Feb 21, 2020 6:43 AM

On 2019-10-27 15:31, Jürka wrote:
3. Crushed Ice
It's a "must be" of crushed ice for tiki drinks. But at home I always use only cubes. Why? At first it got very annoying to crush the ice and I don't have ice crusher. But after a while I found out that crushed ice dilutes the drink too heavily. In any bar, good one or bad one, I get the drink, it might be very good... for at first... but second half of the drink tastes like flavored water. I drink too slow? Well... Well-well, maybe. But cubes are doing their job perfectly. There's no problem to shake the liquid ice-cold. The liquid stays with cubes ice-cold till it's done and gone into my body. I see no problems to use cubes instead of crushed ice... as long as we are not talking about filling the glass to the top for a visual reasons. My small glasses are in matching size for 4...6 oz of drink and therefor it's always filled with a tastiness from top to the bottom end. There's still dilution, but just as much as it should be, does not ruin the drink.

To each their own, to be sure. I won't take issue with your personal preference, enjoy what you enjoy. However, I would counter that tiki drinks which specifically call for crushed ice in the recipe, it is there for good reason. One of the important reasons is the proper amount of dilution. Imo, the problem too often with tiki drinks that are made with crushed ice is that they haven't been given a truly proper shake. A well and vigorously shaken drink not only dilutes, aerates, and combines the ingredients, but also rapidly chills the drink - so much so that the remaining ice melts much, much more slowly. It makes a tremendous difference in the quality of the drink and how long you can enjoy the drink after it is served. A poorly shaken drink (often starting out with not enough crushed ice) quickly goes downhill as the remaining ice melts faster and ending up as the flavored water nobody wants.

[ Edited by: Dr. Coruba 2020-02-21 06:44 ]