One of the things that I love about airline travel is the ice cubes in the drinks they serve. I always liked the cylindrical shaped cubes that were somehow hollowed out in the middle. Somehow, they were always better than the cubes that you crack out of the ice trays at home.

It appears that a Japanese company has cornered the market on unusual ice cube shapes with the Ice Mold, a spherical ice cube maker.

Oddly enough, the Ice Mold doesn’t work the way I expected it to. I thought that what would happen is that water would be put into a small sphere, and the machine would freeze it somehow. Then the sphere would be split in two down the planned seam.

Actually, all you have to do is put an ice cube or chunk of ice, and the Ice Mold forms the ice into a perfect sphere, with absolutely no seams at all.

Believe it or not, a spherical ice cube will melt more slowly, and will reduce its volume evenly. This Ice Mold can make ice balls in 55, 65, 70, and 80 mm sizes. Believe it or not, it can actually make 30-40 ice balls an hour!

Now, if they could make a machine that could make snowballs, that would be even more useful.

Source