smoked cocktails

[clifish]

The key to smoking water (or any other liquid) is breaking the surface tension of the water say every 30 minutes. This is a great process to do cold smoking ( pellets in a tube for example) I'd use hickory or anything lighter and let it go for 4 or 5 hours. Excess heat will obviously evaporate the liquid.

Once you've smoked the water, make sure to strain out any ash etc.. but do not run it through a coffee filter which will actually reduce the smoke flavor.

Pour it into a cheap plastic ice cube tray and let it freeze. Don't use your regular ice cube trays otherwise the significant other will be upset!

Ok, my 2" "golf ball" ice molds came in today. I have plenty of Hickory dust, Alder and pecan pellet's and Cherry pellet's any recommendation for type and time to smoke the water for Whiskey? I will boil the water after to try and get really clear ice .

 

[Torch&Tone]

I think any of those should be fine but whenever I might be concerned about bitterness, I start with a sweeter wood, like cherry. Time is really hard to pin down, but I'd say try a taste after a couple of hours. For experiment's sake, remove some after one, three, and five hours to compare? If you're cold-smoking, good to go, but if you're hot-smoking, remember that water boils at around 212F (a simple reminder, because someone somewhere undoubtedly spent a bunch of wood and time, only to come back to... an empty tray).

For clear ice, don't waste time and energy boiling the water (even distilled water), as there will still be enough dissolved elements afterwards to disrupt crystal formation. Clear ice generally comes from (preferably slow) directional freezing, giving the dissolved impurities a chance to push out ahead of the ice crystals, rather than getting trapped between them. Camper English's Alcademics website is pretty good on explanation and reviewing both DIY and bought solutions, including how to better use those silicone molds.

I'm not sure, though, if there's overlap between dissolved, clarity-reducing impurities that we want to push out for clear ice, and dissolved, smoky-flavor "impurities" that we want to hold on to...

 

[forktender]

How does one smoke water to make cubes? just put it in a pan and smoke for a period of time, then make ice?

I just add it to my favorite bong, after a few bowls you don't care if your drinks are smoked or not as long as you are.