The History of America’s Ice Obsession: Why The U.S. Loves Frozen Drinks and Ice Rinks

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2023

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ice is everywhere: in gas stations, in restaurants, in hospitals, in hotels via noisy machines, and in our homes. Americans think nothing of dropping a few ice cubes into tall glasses of tea to ward off the heat of a hot summer day. Most refrigerators owned by Americans feature automatic ice machines. Ice on-demand has so revolutionized modern life that it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t always this way—in fact, the national obsession with ice can be traced back to a Bostonian merchant who, 200 years ago, figured out how to get Caribbean bartenders addicted to serving their drinks cold.

Today’s guest is Amy Brady, author of “Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks.” She shares the strange and storied two-hundred-year-old history of ice in America: from the introduction of mixed drinks “on the rocks,” to the nation’s first-ever indoor ice rink, to how delicacies like ice creams and iced tea revolutionized our palates, to the ubiquitous ice machine in every motel across the US. But Ice doesn’t end in the past. Brady also explores the surprising present-day uses of ice in sports, medicine, and sustainable energy—including cutting-edge cryotherapy breast-cancer treatments and new refrigerator technologies that may prove to be more energy efficient—underscoring how precious this commodity is.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's got to hear with another episode of the History Unplugged Podcast.
0:08.1	Americans love ice.
0:09.8	They consume over 400 pounds of ice per person per year, far and away more than any other
0:14.7	country.
0:15.7	High levels of ice consumption can be traced directly back to one man, Frederick Tudor,
0:19.4	a boss of natives who in the early 1800s began harvesting ice and selling it in the Caribbean.
0:24.3	He developed storage and harvesting techniques like sawdust instead of straw, and special
0:28.4	ships that could keep it from melting, and he also marketed his products, giving free
0:32.5	ice to Cuban bartenders and telling them that they would sell more drinks if they were
0:36.4	chilled, and then eventually charging them for it.
0:39.1	The trend for cold drinks caught on among the rich and eventually trickled down to the lower
0:42.7	classes.
0:43.7	The use of ice proliferated, early movie theaters would buy huge blocks of ice and circulate
0:48.4	cold air with fans through the scorching hot theaters, ice caught on in therapeutic medicine
0:53.6	to reduce the swelling of injuries, and in professional sports, ice hockey rings sprung
0:58.0	out throughout the United States.
0:59.0	Today, I'm speaking to Amy Brady, author of Ice, for mixed drinks to skating rinks.
1:04.1	We look at how a few twists of history cause ice to be omnipresent in the United States,
1:09.1	while it's much less available elsewhere, and if you're not convinced, go to a restaurant
1:12.4	and say Italy and see how much ice they put in your drinks, and we'll also look at
1:15.6	the future of ice, and how if it will transform what comes ahead the same way it has transformed
1:19.9	America's history.
	...

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