🧊 Travel tip #126: Why Americans pile on the ice, and nobody else does

Hi Reader,

I hope you are having a lovely week :)

This week's travel tip is a tongue in cheek take on what all Americans notice when they travel to Europe (or anywhere else for that matter), and viceversa, what everyone visiting the US or Canada finds when they sit down for a drink or meal: Americans LOVE ice, while the rest of the world couldn't care less about it.

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Our relationship with ice: Love or hate?

There are 3 things I regularly see Americans complain about when they join us on our European tours:

• Ice is nowhere to be seen, and at most, your drink will have a couple of ice cubes, even in the summer
• AC cools you down, but is never cold enough
• Meals are not a transactional event but a social one, and therefore, no server will bring you a bill unless you ask for it

A lot of the above is due to cultural differences that are shared across European countries, but also to historical ones. This is the case with the amount of ice added to drinks in both continents.

If you have ever traveled to the US, you will have noticed your glass is first filled with ice to the top and then the drink gets added. This means that the amount of drink you get is small, since the glass is full of ice.

You may have also noticed that hotels have ice machines on every floor, so you can refill your ice bucket, which is on every room, and add ice to whatever drinks you may have brought, or to tap water.

In Europe, a chilled drink may have 1 or 2 ice cubes, even cocktails, but most likely will have none. It is common for restaurants not to serve any ice in your drink, and for the drink to come from a not so cold fridge, and it wouldn't be strange for them not to even have it unless they serve cocktails or iced drinks.

I always thought that this difference was merely cultural, the product of preferences that have not been affected by globalization, but it turns our there is a historical reason for American's obsession with ice.

This fascinating article goes into the details behind this difference.

The US obsession with ice started a long time ago, something in the 19th century, and was already mentioned by Charles Dickens in his travels. It all started by a man, Frederick Tudor, who became known as the Ice King.

He managed to find a way to keep and transport ice from frozen ponds to the whole world and with the left overs, he started the ice market in the US by giving it away to taverns who added it to drinks.

Patrons became obsessed with the chilled drinks and came back for more, and this is how the ice industry started.

This penchant for diluted, uber cold drinks never made it outside the US, except for Canada.

I lived 13 years in Asia and got used to the opposite: warm drinks, especially tea or water, accompanying Chinese or other East Asian meals, and considered to be much better for your body than iced drinks.

I personally do not like ice other than in cocktails or if I am looking for an iced drink like iced coffee, on a hot summer day. I would never add ice to wine, and I always ask for the ice to be removed from all other drinks.

In the US, I take the ice from my drink and add it to my soup (I also don't like super hot food or drinks that burn your tongue), when I forget to ask the server to bring my drink without ice.

So now you know where the obsession comes from, and why the rest of the world watches in disbelief when their drinks come with a glass full of ice.

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Are you camp iced drinks or not?

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Have a wonderful weekend and talk to you next week !

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