At upscale bars in Japan, bartenders have been carving their own ice for a while. While ice has always been of interest to those of the craft, the use of a round shape was unknown to us. We weren’t even aware of it until we were sent a You Tube video of a bartender carving away at a chunk of ice until it looks, well, about like a baseball minus the stitches.

Why all the fuss? At first it seems to be a lot of work for something that doesn’t seem to be a big deal… it’s just ice, right?

Maybe not. Upon closer inspection and a little more research, the theory is that one spherical chunk of ice has less surface area than a bunch of cubes and therefore doesn’t dilute your drink as much while still cooling down whatever you happen to be imbibing.

Sound reasoning, but we aren’t ones to believe everything we read. We headed to the only bar in Seattle we could find that uses spherical ice, Vessel. Vessel actually advertises they use 5 different kind of ice, from crushed to cubes to the object of our obsession, balls.

We posted up at the window bar table, which looks out onto a bustling 5th Avenue and makes one feel quite exposed and like a bit like a mannequin, and pored over the menu. An impressive collection of cocktails greeted us, complete with asides about the way the drink are served (up, rocks, etc.). Abandoning martinis and cocktails, we opted for a Glenlivit on the rocks, hoping our icy assumptions were correct. Sure enough, it arrived (fifteen minutes later) in a sleek glass and instead of rocks we have, well, rock I suppose.

Was it different? Better? Bar Guy, our resident scotch expert says yes. After careful consideration, he had to admit that the ice did melt slower than conventional ice, and therefore didn’t taste watered down at the usual rate. While he usually enjoys his peaty beverage naked, he notes that if you aren’t trying to pound your single malt, but want to keep it cool, this is the way to go. He admits, however, that if you drink too slow you are going to end up in the same predicament as you would with regular ice; i.e. scotch flavored water.

The next logical question would be, how does one acquire these balls? We found that indeed, one can buy them ready made. For the bargain price of 40 bucks a bag (bag = 5 “spheres”) plus shipping, you can have perfect, dry ice refrigerated, clear ice balls made with purified water to chill your poison, courtesy of Glace Luxury Ice (www.glace-ice.com). Yes, $40 plus shipping to have frozen water shipped to your house for one time use in a drink designed to make you forget the whole experience.

Sounds extravagant? Perhaps. Glace touts itself as “luxury ice”, and caters to those “accustomed to the very best”. The whole thing sounded a bit, er, ridiculous to us (no offense, luxury ice guy), but we DID enjoy the benefits of one big ball… what is a price conscious imbiber to do? Watch hours of You Tube, learn Japanese and incur frostbite learning the ropes?

Japan seems to be not only full of talented bartenders but also engineers. After a little more digging we found a nifty device from Taisin (http://www.taisin-ss.co.jp/html_docs/indexaa.html) that will actually transform blocks of ice into perfect 2 ½ inch spheres… for about $1600. Not in OUR budget. Next!

Then, success! For about 16 bucks (plus S&H) you can get ice ball molds from MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York (http://www.momastore.org). Ours arrived about a week after ordering, in packaging that was almost completely in Japanese. About 8,723 freezing attempts later, we had the technique down and were making balls good enough to use. Vessel says they hand carve their balls, and that may be true, but ours did just as well as far as melting time and structural integrity.

And the taste? Bar Guy tried out his beloved Laphroig over the homemade balls. No, they won’t be perfectly clear spherical wonders, but it’s still frozen water in the shape we were trying for. He was impressed and satisfied that his dram wasn’t being taken advantage of.

Want to try the balls? Give the ice mold from MOMA a try. Entertaining? We recommend a vegetable peeler to shave off those pesky seams from you fancy new balls. Hey, they don’t have to know you didn’t do them by hand, right?

And if you have $1600 burning a hole in your pocket? Buy a Taisin ice ball mold and tell us how it is. We will be jealous of your perfect balls.