Fruity Flavored Ice Cubes from Spoon Fork Bacon

Ice doesn’t always get its due as a cocktail ingredient. You can’t have a good cocktail without ice! But ice can do more than be cold and melt––it can also be pretty. Beautify plain-old frozen-water ice cubes by adding edible flowers or berries. Or make your drink into time-elapse art with cubes that slowly add color to your cocktail as they melt. Of course water isn’t the only thing that freezes, so anything from lemonade to coffee can be frozen into flavorful cubes. Here are a few of my favorite creative cubes:

The California Terroir Project shares a gorgeous drink called “The Leach” that features hibiscus tea ice cubes that slowly melt to give the drink a bright color as well as add a light floral flavor.

Another take on time-released color is “The Time Bomb” from Alcademics, which puts food coloring in the middle of your cubes for a drink that goes from clear to black.

Martha Stewart’s simple floral ice cubes will make a simple drink like a Gin & Tonic look elegant enough for any occasion.

Why stop with flowers, though? Berries are particularly tasty and beautiful in ice cubes, so you can add them to plain water ice cubes or make flavored ice cubes like these by Spoon Fork Bacon.

Jammy Chicken even has ice cubes to match all sorts of drinks. Coffee cubes to go with coffee concoctions, lemonade cubes for that Arnold Palmer, and so on. You can take that idea and make it match your cocktail or soda creation.