You may not give a second thought as to whether your cocktail should be shaken or stirred, but the professionals at Le Loup in Germantown certainly do.
It’s all a matter of dilution. That is, lowering the alcoholic strength of a beverage through the subtle addition of water shed off of ice. The more surface area of the ice the cocktail touches, the more dilution will be achieved. So, shaking and serving a drink “on the rocks” would produce the most, followed by a drink stirred and served on the rocks, then a drink shaken and served up, stirred and served up, etc.
The perfect ice shape to serve in a drink for optimal slow dilution over time is a sphere, as edges increase surface area which, as we mentioned earlier, determines dilution and a large ice cube dilutes at a slower rate.
Beverage Manager, Kenneth Vanhooser, Beverage Supervisor, J.A. Harrison, and team take pride in carving up blocks of crystal-clear ice for their cocktails, the sound of a wet ‘thump’ in the background all a part of the experience of Le Loup.
Crystal clear ice is frozen in a precise way to ensure no impurities or cloudiness, guaranteeing no flavor disruption to the cocktail. It’s cut with a Deba knife, a Japanese style knife made for fish butchery that doesn’t dull, for aesthetics (and simply to fit in the glass). The shape they’ve chosen to carve it into is something close to a sphere, but with the aesthetic value of a diamond. “It gives you a place to make impressions in the ice,” says Kenneth, “but it also gives you a perfect balance between drink and vessel. Besides, who doesn’t want to watch somebody put their fingers on the line and carve up a bunch of ice with a knife?”
Like the cocktails they craft, carving ice is another means of a person showing mastership of a substance. So, slide onto a suede barstool at the bar and see for yourself. Trust us, it really is cool.
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