Author: A. C. Weaver
The Franz Josef Glacier has a smoky flavor and a granular texture. The Mendenhall glacier is gamey, with notes of musk and vetiver. The Greenland Ice Sheet has a powdery sweetness to it, like fine sugar. Ice of the Baltoro Glacier — which I enjoyed cubed in a Macallan single-malt — has a subtle, earthy bouquet. I have a close personal friend with access to an extensive cold storage facility in Svalbard; he often invites me there to indulge in rare or extinct ice. He chipped me off a serving of his collection from the Cook Ice Cap. It was the deepest blue I’ve ever seen, bluer than you could possibly imagine, you would weep to see it. We glutted on it, had it straight, shaved into shards to melt on the tongue.
The highly praised Perito Moreno Glacier has cores of bright green and even purple ice. But in color and flavor, I find them gauche. Very popular with the influencer crowd, and unfortunately, easily faked.
An acquaintance of mine, who happens to be a food journalist for the Times, took me out to dinner on the roof of the Hotel Angelique for a rare indulgence in rough-cut core of the Antarctic Shackleton Ice Shelf — one of the last places you can get it, outside of private collections — , on a bed of heather and garnished with arctic thyme. Exquisite, pure as water.