Cool by Design: Meet Columbus’ artisan ice craftsmen
Gazing deep into your next cocktail, you might marvel at the clarity of the ice—clarity that might only come from careful cutting, hand-polishing, and passion fueled by decades of experience.
For Travis Owens and Ben Griest, what started as a side hustle has grown into a business that provides that hypnotically clear, often logo-branded, ice to dozens of cocktail bars and hotels around the city, including hotspots like Astra, Palm Valley, and The Lion.
Why premium ice? “It’s the simplicity and the texture. Aesthetically, it’s pleasing. There’s a lot of subconscious involved in it because of the weight,” Owens explained.
“You’re also affecting flavor and temperature,” he continued. “There’s less dilution in your cocktail over the course of time. There are certain cocktails that require that style of chilling.”
Griest chimed in, “It just makes everything look clean. That’s really what sold me on it a long time ago. It’s like having a beautiful crystal glass, enjoying a nice glass of wine. Everything’s elevated by the right tools.”
Owens and Griest started working together years ago, when Owens started freezing super-clear ice for his cocktails at Curio. “Between [Griest] and I, we did the best we could to keep up ice with that particular venue,” Owens said. “We taught ourselves how to freeze ice so it doesn’t have bubbles, it’s not cloudy.”
Fast forward to years later. Griest was providing ice for other cocktail bars around the city, while Owens had moved on to consulting and also some ice making of his own. “It was just happenstance,” Griest recalled. “A co-worker of ours opened up a bar, and then she asked [for ice], and then somebody else asked, and before I knew it, I had maxed out operating under cottage law.”
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Owens continued, “After Covid, we put our heads together and were like, ‘We should do this. There’s enough people reaching out. We have enough accounts.’ So, a year and a half ago, the two combined forces to become Ice Punk. The name is a nod to Daft Punk, artistry that’s a little obscure, a little different, definitely edgy.
With their combined 50-plus years of experience in the service industry, the Ice Punk guys know exactly what upscale bars need for premium cocktails. Griest and Owens produce six 300-plus-pound blocks of crystal-clear ice every three days, using huge tanks that freeze water from the bottom. Constant circulation prevents bubbles and floats any remaining particulates to the top of the tank, where they’re vacuumed off before the block is removed with a hoist. “That hoist is our lifeline,” Owens said, laughing.
After the block is harvested, it’s cut crosswise into slabs with a horizontal saw, and the slabs are eventually cut into individual cubes on butcher stones with a band saw. After that, they might be pressed into spheres or embossed with warm metal stamps. And, finally, each cube is hand-polished to a luminous shine with a microfiber cloth—over two thousand per day.
Just like eggs and chocolate, ice is very temperature-sensitive, and requires tempering. Cutting it at too low a temperature produces high friction and causes cracking. Too high a temperature, and melting becomes a problem.
“I think you can pretty much cut [blocks] when they start to sweat. Kind of like melting a little bit on the outside. That’s a barometer for when it’s time,” Owens said.
Not that cracks don’t happen; they do. And Ice Punk not only saves scraps; they also sell them. After all, the ice may be broken, but it’s still crystal clear.
And then there’s storage and delivery. Their production facility in Reynoldsburg is filled with freezers (they’ve lost count of how many), and they provide freezers for clients who don’t have proper storage. Griest and Owens deliver all of the ice themselves, using their own vehicles packed with coolers.
“Right now we’re bootstrapping everything,” Owens admitted. “As we grow, [delivery]’s going to have to grow with it.” They’re at the point where they’re discussing future staffing needs, although nothing’s underway yet.
For now, they just love making ice. Owens summed up their passion for their craft: “You see these people creating elaborate menus. Whether it’s the artwork that goes into the menu or the ingredients that go into the menu, or sourcing certain materials or the pretty glassware, you go to all those lengths and then you end up getting a crappy ice machine. So all the hard work that goes in, all of those things start to not make as much difference because you just didn’t put the finishing touch on it.
Learn more about Ice Punks by visiting icepunks614.com.
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