How to DIY Colorful & Creative Ice Cubes
If you love an excuse to make your beverages a little extra special — whether for a holiday or to celebrate the everyday — there are a few ways to elevate the experience. You can use beautiful glassware, carefully prepare garnishes, buy cute paper straws and little umbrellas, or dust off your best vintage punch bowl. One of the most dramatic ways to add a pop of color and a bit of drama to your drinks is also the easiest: making decorative ice cubes!
A bit of planning ahead and a handful of ingredients are all you need to make fancy ice cubes that look truly amazing in drinks. The best part is that you can gear the aesthetic to be playful, artful, elegant or experimental; making these cubes is one part kitchen task, one part DIY craft.
Here’s how to get started on this simple-but-satisfying project:
Ice Cube Trays and Molds
You can 100% absolutely use a standard ice cube tray to make colorful cubes. But there’s a lot more fun to be had if you explore other kinds of ice cube molds. There are large square molds, which look lovely in spirits-forward cocktails, and smaller square molds which work great in all sorts of drinks.
Spherical ice molds make a stunning presentation, and if you like the idea of interestingly-shaped ice, the sky's the limit when it comes to the molds you can find out there. Flowers, stars, hearts, skulls, penguins and gems are just a few that we’ve seen in kitchen stores and online retailers!
Tip: Most modern ice cube trays and molds are made out of silicone. This is our top material pick, as its soft, flexible texture makes the ice molds easy to fill. Plus, it’s so easy to remove the frozen ice, too!
For punch bowls or large pitchers, you can also experiment with larger formats of ice, like making an ice ring using a bundt cake pan, or smaller ice cups using silicone cupcake/muffin liners. There are so many ways to be creative with how your ice is shaped!
Colorful Ingredients
The basic technique for making fancy ice cubes is to fill the ice cube tray with whatever ingredient(s) you choose, and then top them with liquid, which could be water or another beverage. Leave a bit of room at the top, as the cubes will expand as they freeze.
Tip: The quantity of ingredients in each cube is up to you. A jam-packed cube has an intense, vibrant look; more sparse ingredients will have an elegant, minimalist appearance.
From there, the combination of ingredients is practically endless. Some ideas include:
Fresh Herbs: Basil, mint, cilantro, thyme, rosemary, dill or fennel fronds.
Common Fruits: Fresh or frozen blueberries and raspberries, red or green grapes (halved, or sliced into slender circles), cucumber slices, melon balls or citrus rind.
Seasonal Fruits: Cranberries, clementine slices, pomegranate arils, figs, kiwi or watermelon.
Tropical Fruits: Mango, pineapple, dragon fruit, papaya or lychee.
Edible flowers: Fresh or dried rose petals, lavender buds, chamomile, nasturtium or dandelions.
You can make the cubes using regular or filtered water; keep in mind that it’s easier to pour the water from a pitcher or bottle than to hold the ice cube tray under the tap. For even more unique cubes, consider using organic juices instead!
Creative cubes can be made with one or multiple ingredients. Often, fruits and herbs look pretty when paired together with colorful juices. Once you start incorporating other liquids besides water, then you can go wild with flavor combos, like:
Rosemary + cranberry + White Grape Juice cubes in punch.
Lavender + blueberry + Pure Lemon Juice cubes in lemonade.
Ginger + orange rind + Just Pomegranate Juice cubes in sangria.
Lemon + basil cubes in Half & Half Iced Tea Lemonade.
Cucumber + dill + Pure Lime Juice cubes in a bloody mary.
Lime + cilantro + Just Pineapple Juice cubes in an agua fresca.
Jalapeno + Just Tart Cherry Juice cubes in a spicy margarita.
Layers
For a show-stopping look, try making layered cubes. This takes a little more time, but no more effort, than the method above. Start with two or more liquids that are complementary in flavor but contrasting in color. Fill the cubes about half way up with the first beverage, allow it to freeze for a few hours, and then fill the remaining space with the second liquid. You can make cubes with more layers if you have the patience to let each component freeze!