Gläce Luxury Ice balls: the latest in high-class drinking

For some people, the brand of booze you drink is just as much of a status symbol as the car you drive. Mercedes, Lamborghini, Geo Metro… Grey Goose, Crystal, Colt 45. Like the wheels you sport, the liquor in your glass shows everyone else what sort of spender you are. Unfortunately, no one besides the bartender can tell what you’re drinking after it leaves the bottle. If only there was a way to show folks how seriously you take your alcohol…

Introducing Gläce Luxury Ice, the latest advancement in cocktail technology. Gläce (pronounced gloss) is a new “drink-ice product” that allows you to enjoy your high-class booze in style. Unlike cubes, Gläce Ice is spherical, which supposedly makes your drinking experience as efficient as possible. Each ball is a perfect 2 1/2” of frozen purified water designed to keep your drink cooler, your sipping style elevated, and all the other drinkers with “less discerning taste” melting with envy. Oh, and they cost $8 each.

There’s also a special technique for preparing Gläce. In order to achieve full satisfaction from your frosty spheres, their website recommends leaving them out for a few minutes so they can acclimate to room temperature. Otherwise, drinkers in a rush can watch as their ice spheres “crackle” and “spider” as you pour a favorite top shelf spirit over them.

For those who can stomach the price-tag (and the umlaut), Gläce is a way to show your companions and future admirers that you enjoy the finer things in life — “Oh my. Who’s the big spender with the ice balls in his drink?” It’s the Armani name tag on an otherwise generic suit, or the tell-tale companion piece to a nameless work of art. And like most fringe luxury items, the product has a hard time living up to the packaging.

But why stop there? If you have a perfectly-crafted ice cube (or ball) couldn’t every other part of the drinking experience be upgraded as well? A twenty year-old Scotch could be served in a glass that compliments the liquor’s color and is shaped to maximize the drink’s effects on your lips, tongue and taste buds. The cocktail napkin could be made from handcrafted silk, and the drinker’s fingernails could be carved at just the right angle by special Scotch-drinker’s clippers in order to ensure the correct grasp and thus the perfect angle for consumption. Otherwise they’re just not enjoying that drink at its full potential.

Or you could always just roll with the ice the bartender gives you. Your drink may water down like everyone else’s, and you may not achieve the social standing that comes with sporting ice balls, but at least if you throw your drink in someone’s face it won’t break their jaw.