While the right drink can be the perfect complement to a well-cooked meal, a drink that’s watered down certainly distracts from it.
So Hailstonez is changing the way that drinks are kept chilled. The product was thought of using the concept of heat transference through solids; in this case, cold retention. Since a sphere has the lowest surface-area-to-weight ratio of all shapes, a sphere of frozen ice is better than an ice cube. Less surface area of the ice in contact with any liquid means that ice spheres won’t melt as quickly, which in turn means drinks dilute less rapidly. The vertical stack method that Hailstonez uses allows for the ice mold to be filled faster, and it takes up less space in the freezer. The mold makes 96 ice spheres. Plans are in the works for both 1.5 and 2.5 inch ice balls.
This particular product seems like it has some potential, and is much more clearly explained than the Glacious LE ice sphere campaign. This campaign seeks to raise $58,000 on Kickstarter. Early bird backers get one product for $30 with an expected delivery of May 2015.