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In parallel to this democratisation of ice, a new wave of cocktail bars had started to focus on ice as a key component of their offering. In Liquid Intelligence – the bible of modern cocktail culture – Dave Arnold dedicates a whole chapter to the subject, coaching his readers on the science and technology of making and using the sort of high-quality ice that "was the norm in the days before mechanical refrigeration". Bars increasingly put this sort of ice front and centre: when The Aviary opened in Chicago in 2011, it did so with a promotional video that showcased 25 individual types of ice in different shapes, sizes and flavours – from tiny pearls to cricket-ball-sized shells (as used in the classic, much-imitated "In The Rocks", in which the cocktail is served inside an ice cube that the drinker shatters at the table) – made on-site in a dedicated ice room by a dedicated ice guy. This new "craft ice" even looked different: crystalline, "water-clear" in Arnold's formulation, carved (in the fanciest bars) or shaved into exquisite shapes. The cloudy, brittle cubes lurking in the nation's freezer drawers were exposed as the abominations people in the trade had always thought them to be.
在冰块的民主化进程中，新一波的鸡尾酒吧也开始把冰块作为他们产品的关键组成部分。在现代鸡尾酒文化的圣经《液体智能》一书中，戴夫·阿诺德用了整整一章的篇幅来讲述这个主题，指导他的读者如何制作和使用“在机械制冷之前是标准的”高品质冰块的科学和技术。酒吧越来越倾向于将冰块放在前沿和中心位置：2011年，当鸟舍在芝加哥开业时，它通过一段宣传视频展示了25种不同形状、大小和口味的冰块——从小珍珠到板球大小的贝壳(就像在经典的、被大量模仿的《岩石之中》中使用的那样，鸡尾酒被放在一个冰块里，喝的人可以在桌子上将冰块打碎)——在一个专门的冰室里由一名专业制冰人现场制作。这种新的“工艺冰块”甚至连看上去都与众不同：晶莹剔透，阿诺德将其描述为“无色透明”，雕刻(在最高档的酒吧里)或切成精美的形状。那些藏在国家冰屉里不透明的、易碎的冰块被公开示众，正如那些讨厌的商人所期望的那样。
As the author and spirits expert Emma Stokes told me over email, the craft cocktail movement also helped to foster a growing awareness that "you need a decent amount of ice to make good cocktails". Add insufficient ice to a drink and the ice will do what ice always seeks to do: melt into a watery mess. Add lots of ice, though, and the opposite happens: the drink remains cold and crisp. These were encouraging signs for the packaged ice business: if ice was supposed to be abundant, then a single domestic freezer tray or integrated fridge ice dispenser was no longer going to meet demand.
正如作家兼烈酒专家艾玛·斯托克斯在电子邮件中告诉我的那样，工艺鸡尾酒运动还有助于培养了一种越来越强烈的意识，即“想要做出好酒，你需要添加适量的冰块”。在饮品中加的冰太少，冰块就会正常融化成水。但如果加了太多的冰，就会出现相反的情况：饮料会一直冰凉爽口。这些对包装冰业务来说是鼓舞人心的迹象：如果冰量充足，那么单一的家用冷冻托盘或者集成的冰箱冰分配器将无法满足需求。
Within the space of a few years, ice in the UK had started to matter, both in quantity and quality; people were even starting to display signs of ice snobbery. Within the trade, of course, they have always heaped derision on inferior product: Camper English, perhaps the pre-eminent cocktail ice scholar, refers to "shitty hotel ice" in contrast to proper, craft stuff; in The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, David Embury warns against making ice at home, lest your fridge-freezer introduce unwanted notes of "camembert cheese or leftover broccoli". But a giant piece of market research commissioned by The Ice Co in 2014 revealed that the average consumer, too, had an opinion: increasingly, people wanted different kinds of ice depending on how that ice was going to be used – whether to pack into a cocktail shaker, chill an ice bucket, or melt decorously and imperceptibly in a dram of single malt.
在英国，冰块的数量和质量在短短几年内开始变得越来越重要。人们甚至开始表现出冰势利的迹象。当然，同业间总会对劣质冰大加嘲讽。杰出的鸡尾酒冰学者Camper English将“劣质的酒店冰块”和正规的手工冰块进行了比较。在《调制饮料的艺术》一书中，大卫·恩伯里警告大家不要在家里制冰，以免冰块沾上冰箱冷冻层中不想要的“卡芒贝尔奶酪或吃剩的西兰花”的味道。但The Ice Co在2014年委托进行的一项大型市场调查显示，普通消费者也有自己的看法：越来越多的人想要不同种类的冰块——取决于冰块的使用方式，是放入鸡尾酒摇酒器中，还是放入冰桶中，还是在一小杯纯麦芽威士忌中优雅地、悄无声息地融化。
