How Do You Produce Ice Chips in a Cocktail?

Taken from http://www.thesexykitchen.com/martini_madness.html
“Post Shaking – All professional bartenders will shake the tumbler with the ice over the martini before serving the drink. They do this to shake ice chips into the drink which have broken off during shaking. It creates a nice crystal effect on top of your martini”

They use crushed ice.

I guess you could run a heap of ice cubes through a blender, or use an ice dispenser that can dispense crushed ice. I really like the effect too. :)

Or wrap ice cubes in a towel and smash the bundle with a rolling pin.

anthony81212 is closest. The small ice chips are created by fast, vigourous shaking. Yes, post shaking drops a few in as well but most were poured in with the rest of the drink. Yes they are delightful on the lips, but they are the sign of a watered down cocktail.

Unfortunately , too many bartenders don’t truly understand what exactly they are doing. They want to shake it hard and long to make it as cold as possible. They’re wrong. Shaking a cocktail mixes the ingredients. To chill a cocktail you stir. With shaking you are inevitably going to melt some of the ice (water down the cocktail) so you must work fast. The cocktail glass must be chilled in advance. Combine all the ingredients quickly in the shaker and give it 5 (only five!) quick, vigorous shakes over your shoulder. The cocktail should be strained out of the glass tumbler, not the silver shaker. You will recognize a “lesser” bartender immediately because they pour out of the silver shaker. This allows them to be less accurate with their freepouring and shows they don’t have the best grasp on the recipe. Also they’ve just spent 15 seconds shaking it. They don’t want you to see how little ice is left in the shaker.

@breedmitch: Start a cocktail blog, I’d read it! What a great answer.

What’s a blog?

Lurve to you for a deliciously authoritative answer, breedmitch. It made me thirsty.

@Brian lovingly ogling Gewirtztraminer

my sister has a shaker with spikes in the lid, so the ice chips in the cocktail much more easily

and by the way, I’m trying to find one of these!