If you’ve ever traveled to Europe, you’ve probably noticed the water is room temperature and generally served without ice unless you specify in advance. If you’re lucky, you’ll get some cubes floating around in your glass, but nothing like the glassful we get in the US. So why do Europeans go without ice in their drinks?
One reason floating around is because Europeans believe ice is taking up valuable real estate in the glass. They feel cheated if they get too much ice and not enough of their beverage—we’ve all experienced that headache of too much melted ice mixing with our drink. Another reason is that Europeans believe ice is dirty because you don’t always know where it’s coming from. This may be true, but we’ve discussed ways to ensure your ice is clean in the past, so sounds like they might just be sticklers for tradition.
The reverse of that question: why do we overload our drinks with ice, and all the dilution that comes with it? It goes to the mentality that “more is more.” Just as we put tons of ice in our glasses, our portion sizes are significantly bigger than they are in Europe. Restaurants also rely on refills and the thought process behind making more profits is that the more ice you put in, the less of the drink you’re giving to the customer. This isn’t great business practice (don't do it!), but we’ve heard of restaraunts doing that in the past.
Bartenders in America rely on ice as part of their style and use it to make their drinks unique. We love our ice, and it doesn’t look like we’re adopting the no ice style anytime soon!
