From London to Sydney, when the cocktail goes green

It can be a Margarita, made with tequila. Or a Mojito, with white rum, lime, mint leaves. Or, again, a Pina Colada, with sweet hints of coconut and pineapple. In any case, the key ingredient is ice, which not only cools drinks, but changes their flavour, texture and balance. Shaking liquids with ice cubes in a cocktail shaker serves, for example, to aerate alcohol and emphasize delicate aromas, as well as produce firm foams, necessary for drinks such as whiskey sours. Crushed ice, on the other hand, due to its large surface area, rapidly dilutes the preparations, creating the refreshing notes typical of Juleps, which would otherwise have a cloying taste.

So much wasted energy

For every evening, even a not too crowded bar uses a lot of ice, consuming a significant amount of water and energy. “Ice machines, whether air-cooled or water-cooled, which many establishments keep on for a long time to keep the supply constant, require a lot of energy,” confirms Todd Bell, energy analyst at Frontier Energy, speaking with Scientific American. “Water-cooled machines are on average more energy efficient than air-cooled ones, but they consume much more water to produce ice. Just think that 12 liters of water are enough to produce 45 kilos of ice in nature , while water-cooled machines can require up to around 380 litres”. Added to this is the fact that many cocktails are prepared with ingredients, such as lemons, limes, liqueurs, which come from far away and are shipped by ship and plane.

New approaches, from London to Sydney

Considering all this, some famous mixologists around the world are looking for more sustainable solutions. At London’s Eve Bar, for example, a new zero-waste menu includes cocktails made with leftover ingredients from its partner restaurant, Frog. Furthermore, there is no ice machine in the restaurant, instead one opts for frozen blocks delivered by a local company, which are pre-cut by the bartenders to adapt them to each type of glass, in order to limit waste. Finally, no crushed ice, which has been replaced by liquid nitrogen.

At The Perennial, a San Francisco restaurant, cocktail expert Jennifer Colliau has devised new techniques to use less ice without affecting the taste and texture of cocktails. “Once you understand the role of dilution in beverages, you can control it with different methods,” she says. At Re, a bar in Sydney, Australia, most drinks are served pre-diluted. Furthermore, drinks are often made with ingredients that tend to perish easily or go to waste, such as bread, dairy products, bananas, rice, root vegetables.

Reuse the ice

Another idea for a green cocktail is to use the same ice in the various stages of preparing a single drink, as suggested by Camper English, an internationally renowned cocktail expert: “When the same ice used to shake or mix a drink is also used to serve it, we speak of ‘dirty dump’, a method that risks making the drink appear frothy and cloudy.However, while it is true that this technique should be avoided for cocktails that require the use of carbonated liquids, it is although it is true that it lends itself well to the creation of some preparations, such as Mai Tai, a mix of rum, curacao, barley water, lime”.

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A smooth drink

In short, with a pinch of chemistry and a little creativity, barmen are trying to focus more and more on low energy consumption and environmentally friendly cocktails. In the meantime, while waiting for virtuous strategies to take hold behind the counter, consumer choices can also make a difference. The advice is to opt for drinks that do not require the use of ice. Like the Kir Royale, a simple and refined French cocktail, composed of blackcurrant liqueur and champagne, almost always served smooth. Or Fröccs, a spritzer of Hungarian origin made with carbonated water and wine, which should never be served iced.