Kold-Draft ice, finally

Ice matters.

Not just today when the weatherman predicts 101 degrees, but the feel of 120.

Actually, ice matters everyday, although most of us (me included) limp along sipping tea and cocktails cooled with cubes made with tap water, popped out of our freezers, rounded and pocketed with air.

Fine ice is different. It’s hammer-hard and sparkly and clear as a mountain pond.

The other day, I went over to The Public House in Ghent, to check out their new ice machine. The 85-seat pub-style eatery just opened this week by the restaurateur crew that’s given us Still in Portsmouth and Bardo , just up the street from the new place.

Their mission: to establish an old-school “public house” on the Colley Avenue corridor. Owners pointed out that the word “pub” is short for the original term, public house. Photographs from public houses around the world decorate the place.

Seems they’re onto something. On opening night, the pub crowd came and beer, all beer, every brand, hit the 86 list by midnight.

But back to the ice.

The new machine, a hard-to-come by Kold-Draft , turns out perfectly square cubes that glisten like cracked diamonds. They are so perfectly square one could build an igloo from them, albeit a transparent one. The bottom-up freezing method, plus a double filtering system, guarantees ice that’s free of impurities.

All this matters because the shape of the ice minimizes the surface area that is in contact with the liquid. That means that the ice melts slower, the drink stays colder longer and is less diluted along the way.

Just thinking about it makes me want a tall gin-and-tonic with a fat slice of lime. Or perhaps one of the long list of original house cocktails, of which I will launch a full investigation into at a (sooner than) later date.

I didn’t get a chance to sample the food – priorities you know. But the menu ranges from escargot ($10.99) to The Public House White Hot ($8.99).

The décor is cool, too. There’s a large smoking room complete with a pool table and cigar lockers – the original oak lockers from Maury High School. While you’re exhaling, gaze up at the tin ceiling, an original feature that delayed the opening of the restaurant and cost the owners dearly to preserve.

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