The ice mallet , a large, heavy, one-handed hardwood maul or hand sledge used to crack ice into fine fragments or even powder, has been a part of the bartender’s toolkit on and off for nearly two hundred years, perhaps longer. The earliest known reference to its use in making drinks is found in the 1847 fourth edition of Oxford Night Caps, as the recipe for both the Sherry Cobbler and Julep called for powdered ice: “Pound a small quantity of ice quite fine, by wrapping it in a coarse cloth, and beating it with a mallet or rolling pin.” This book also recommended the use of ice imported from the Wenham Lake Ice Co., of Massachusetts, which had become a luxury item in England. See mixography.
By the 1840s in America, ice in drinks had become a staple, not a luxury, and the annual arrival of the hot weather saw the newspapers full of advertisements for ice mallets and ice picks. (In place of the coarse cloth, many American bartenders used canvas coin sacks.) As a standard bar tool, the mallets were simple, sturdy things, although the 1846 edition of The American Home Cook Book mentioned an “ice mallet with pick that slides into the handle” as being “requisite” in “furnishing a kitchen.” (The earliest known US patent on a mallet was no. 52,696, granted to Albert C. Eddy on February 20, 1866.)
But if bartender Harry Johnson included the mallet among the “List of the Utensils in Complete Form Used in Saloons, Etc.” in the various editions of his iconic
In recent years, though, the ice mallet has enjoyed something of a renaissance, due in large part to its use by the legendary New Orleans bartender Chris McMillian. See McMillian, Chris. McMillian recalls that he began experimenting with the mallet around 2000 while working at the Ritz-Carlton’s Library Lounge, and while reading the 1963 book The Social History of Bourbon, by Gerald Carson. Mr. McMillian originally began using the mallet to crush ice for his Mint Juleps and Mojitos. The hammers he and his earliest disciples used were true ice mallets, impressive in their size and heft. As the technique became more popular, the market has been flooded with new, purpose-made ice mallets, all too many of them puny, light affairs that require far more effort than the original ones did.
An American Woman [pseud.]. The American Home Cook Book. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1854.
“Ice cream Frozen in Thirty Minutes.” New York Evening Post, June 26, 1849, 3.
Johnson, Harry. New and Improved Bartender’s Manual. New York: Samisch & Goldmann, 1882.
McMillian, Chris. Interview, February 2, 2020.
By: Philip Greene
An early nineteenth-century American hardwood ice mallet.
Wondrich Collection.
An early nineteenth-century American hardwood ice mallet. Source: Wondrich Collection.