After a spate of great weather, it looks like we’re in for a chilly and wet New Years. The return to cold weather got me thinking of a subject I love—ice. We were perhaps the first to chronicle the emerging ice mania of SF cocktails bars over a year ago, and it hasn’t stopped. Around town bartenders, in passionate belief that the ice seriously impacts the drink experience, are still obsessing over their cubes and chunks and spears of frozen water.

I continue to experiment at home too—with these perfectly cubic ice trays and this mold for ice spheres. However, my geometric ice pieces are, alas, always cloudy. So it is with astonishment and great admiration that I draw your attention to SF’s number one ice obsessive: cocktail blogger and journalist Camper English of Alcademics. In an ongoing series (today’s marks his 11th post, I think) he chronicles his labor-intensive efforts to create clear ice at home. (For an example of clear ice at a bar, check out this video in a new series by Grand Marnier; can’t wait till they hit SF). He does appear to be getting closer, though, to a manageable solution, so I expect this series to be coming to a close. In the meantime—may all your cocktails for next year and the remainder of this one be extra cold and undiluted with perfectly tranparent ice.