Upgrade Holiday Drinks With This $4 Aldi Find
This holiday season, you can bring some festive cheer to your cocktails and mocktails by replacing boring cubes of ice with shapes fitting the season. Aldi, the uber-efficient grocery store where they let the cashiers sit because it helps them work incredibly quick, is selling ice cube trays for $3.99 in the shape of gifts, trees, and snowflakes.
Fun ice cube shapes bring a nice visual appeal to any holiday drink you make. Boiling then cooling filtered or distilled water to use in the tray is a simple hack for clearer ice. You can take this a step further by incorporating thematic flavors into the ice. Add sprigs of rosemary or steep spruce tips in the water you use for the tree-shaped ice to add some pine flavors that match the shape. If you have a cocktail you want to add some creaminess to, you can freeze milk, coconut milk, or even horchata in the snowflake ice to create a pleasing effect. The gifts would look great using a pureed red fruit such as strawberry or raspberry. If you want to put in a little extra work, you can freeze just the ribbon portions of the ice cubes in one color and then add another color to fully round out the gift wrapping appearance.
Drinks that benefit from these ice trays
If you're looking for inspiration for your cocktails this season, take a look at our guide to the best cocktails to make for the holidays. There are many in there that would benefit from a playful ice cube. Obviously, these work best in chilled drinks, not served in martini glasses!
Adding rosemary-infused tree-shaped ice to a vodka cranberry will add some piney depth as the ice slowly melts. Use them in a cranberry spritz with rosé, a bit of lemon, and some soda water. A Frostbite, with blue curaçao and white crème de cacao giving it a milky blue hue, will look extra wintry with creamy snowflakes floating on top. Cut out a little of the cream in your usual recipe to account for the ice slowly melting. Freeze some peppermint cream with a touch of green dye in the gifts ice cubes to add to your White Russian for a little candy cane flavor. Don't stop here, though! Hopefully, this has inspired you to try your own ice cube additions.