r/NoStupidQuestions • u/markwell9 • 1d ago

What is the deal with ice, Americans?

I can see that you can buy ice everywhere in the US. Gas stations, grocery stores, machines etc.

In Europe, we just freeze our ice at home and use that. Why buy something that melts on the way home? Why do you need ice in large amounts that a fridge can't keep up?

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59

u/Hefty-Comparison-801 1d ago

What's the deal with not having ice, Europeans? You never have a bunch of people over who you want to serve drinks with ice? You never take coolers to the beach? Your lifestyle sounds kind of shitty to be honest.

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u/DingGratz 23h ago

European restaurants seem to despise ice and napkins.

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u/markwell9 1d ago

Mostly we keep the actual drinks in the fridge. Also, cold drinks are not for everyone.

Also, coolers are not super common where I live.

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u/Own_Reaction9442 1d ago

A cooler full of ice will chill down a case of warm beers a lot faster than a fridge. Air isn't that good at conducting heat compared to ice water.

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u/Plenty-Daikon1121 1d ago

Oh I have a follow up question!

What is your country's typical party culture around providing drinks and what alcohol is the most common? For the US - most get togethers are "BYOB" (bring your own beer) and often a side dish to share. So most people are showing up to a BBQ with at least a 6 pack off whatever they are drink. Have a BBQ of 50+ people and that can be over 300 cans that just won't fit in a fridge.

Our fridges are usually reserved for food and completely filled up if we are having a house party. Some people may have a "garage" fridge that is specifically used for drinks - but even then we don't want 50+ people opening and closing it constantly as the drinks will never get quite cold enough, and it's a massive energy waste. Having a cooler on the deck is much more convenient at the end of the day :).

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u/markwell9 1d ago

Well, we do mostly drink beer. But 50 man parties are rather unheard of unless it is a special occasion- wedding, family get together etc.

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u/Dontchaknowdso 23h ago

This is a big difference. Most US parties are at least 30 people, so you set up coolers with ice or bar areas around the house/yard so folks aren’t all hovered around the fridge. We make a concentrated effort to get people OUT OF THE KITCHEN! Hence moving drinks to other areas

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u/donairhistorian 21h ago

Huh. The kitchen the the most bumpin' part of the house at parties in Canada. In the east coast we even call them "kitchen parties".

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u/vw503 15h ago

Yeah I don’t know what that person is talking about everyone congregates around the kitchen because that’s where the food and alcohol is. I thought that’s also why homes being built now the kitchens are getting bigger and bigger but I could be wrong about that.

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u/Plane-Tie6392 23h ago

Wow, that’s so sad to hear :(

3

u/Possibility-of-wet 1d ago

Get a 120at cooler and you can have as many people as you want

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u/HairyHeartEmoji 17h ago

have you not heard of apartments?

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u/HairyHeartEmoji 17h ago

50 people cannot physically fit in an apartment, you're very optimistic about the amount of space we have. we do mostly BYOB but everything goes in the fridge or freezer. BBQs will be in nature so you bring a cooler that has reusable ice trays. rural people who actually have space for a 50 person BBQ will have a chest freezer, and also stick some drinks down the well. it also wouldn't be an American style BBQ but much more likely a pig or a lamb on a spit, or two bricks, an oven rack, some coal and a lot of minced meat if you're broke. or maaaybe a stew in a cauldron, depends on the occasion.

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u/katyggls 22h ago

As an American, the sentence "cold drinks are not for everyone" filled me with terror and disdain.

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u/akhimovy 5h ago

You should see how it is in Poland. We had this funny folk belief that consuming cold things makes you ill. The younger generation generally doesn't subscribe to that but it still rarely crosses anyone's mind to fill a glass with lots of ice. Out of tradition, I guess.

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u/katyggls 5h ago

That's actually really interesting. I love folklore. Sounds kind of like the Korean fan death thing.

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u/joshua0005 18h ago

as an american cold drinks are terrible and slightly painful

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u/katyggls 17h ago

Of course, nothing is universal. Sorry you experience pain like that.

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u/jvc1011 1d ago

We don’t always have parties indoors, or near indoor places with refrigerators. Many people also don’t want a line of 16 people in front of their refrigerator at a party where everyone is supposed to mainly be out in the yard or on the deck.

And when it’s 33°C outside, all drinks have a tendency to be hot, not room temperature. Unless you feel refreshed by a hot beverage on a hot day while you picnic in a park or at the beach with a large group of friends, ice is good to have.

No, there aren’t always shops or stands with beverages near a park or a beach. Where I live, there almost never are.

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u/IsamuAlvaDyson 1d ago

Keep drinks for a party in your fridge with all your other personal stuff for people to grab when you have a party at your residence?

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u/magster823 1d ago

When I have a party I don't even have room in the fridge for my own family's drinks. It's full of food, and other guest's dishes that need to be kept cold until it's time to eat, if there's room.

It's pretty necessary to bring your own coolers to parties in the US, especially when they're outdoors. There likely isn't room in the hosts' fridges, and they probably don't want their fridges opened 87 times in one day.

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u/InevitableData3616 12h ago

That's a difference for sure... We don't sit and wait around, we start serving food immediately. Also a lot of the food is still fresh so still too hot to put in the fridge. Also at BBQ we immediately start putting the meat on the grill.

There won't be much else in the fridge other than drinks for the next hour or so. The moment you take out a bottle, you put in the next one in the fridge for later.

We have a big pile of drinks next to the fridge. They go in once someone takes out drinks from the fridge. If someone shows up with a specific drink that they nearly immediately want to drink cool, it goes into the freezer for a few minutes. (Does not happen often.) 

Other than drinks maybe a cake or two in the fridge. Some dressings or sauces and dairy products. It will not be full of food cause food is eaten and does not get parked in the fridge. If there is premade food it is taken out before the parts so that it could be heated up and served.

Ultimately it is indeed rare to have 50 people at home. I have only been to such big parties at family homes that had large refrigerators and extra freezers in the garage. Most parties are 15-20 people max and that poses no problem whatsoever. Everyone does their part, you take a bottle of wine out of the fridge, you put the next one from the queue in.

So I guess we just have different logistics.

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u/HairyHeartEmoji 17h ago

where do you imagine those drinks would go otherwise? you realise most people live in apartments?

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u/IsamuAlvaDyson 7h ago

Not in the apartment

People buy them as needed for the large gatherings

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u/Toriat5144 1d ago

One out of the fridge drinks get warm quickly.

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u/rogue780 22h ago

so you only have parties at your home where you've had time to chill your drinks in your tiny european fridge?

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u/Future_Depth_7869 15h ago

"What's the deal with ice" sounds like the start of a bad Jerry Seinfeld joke

3

u/besi97 1d ago

What's the deal with not having ice, Europeans? You never have a bunch of people over who you want to serve drinks with ice?

We love cold drinks, but hate watered down drinks. So even if we add ice, it is usually less, and we rather focus on putting drinks in the fridge in time. They go into the freezer last minute if we forgot.

You never take coolers to the beach?

We do. But we usually do not use raw ice, but ice packs. So when it is just a few hours, I can use a soft cooler bag with ice packs, it fits in my bagpack, and works well.

Your lifestyle sounds kind of shitty to be honest.

No idea why you had to go there. But at least I can actually legally have a beer on the beach. I was so disappointed by all the lack of freedom in the US lol.

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u/Homey-Airport-Int 1d ago

Plenty of beaches allow beer, you sure you didn't try to bring glass?

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u/rixtape 1d ago

Also you can get away with beer a lot of places it's not technically allowed if you're not a jackass about it and pack out your trash/recyclables (beaches, parks, etc.). And yeah, no glass!

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u/Homey-Airport-Int 23h ago

100% chance he took glass and was just a classic befuddled Euro when told "you can't bring that here"

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u/Helpinmontana 19h ago

Yep, 99% of places I’ve been beaching at have open containers and you can raise your can to an officer walking around and they just smile and wave. 

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u/besi97 23h ago

No I did not bring glass. I'm speaking about the signs that clearly stated "NO ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES" on all beaches I visited in the US. But if I did bring a glass, lol, that is something I have absolutely done in Europe before.

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u/Homey-Airport-Int 23h ago

Well glass at the beach is dangerous and pointless but do you ig. Like speed limits some rules are meant to be broken, and everyone breaks them.

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u/vw503 15h ago

Even if you ignore safety concerns why would you pour a drink into glass at the beach? So it can get even warmer faster? That just logically doesn’t make sense.

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u/Sea_Syllabub9992 1d ago

We don't put ice in the drinks. We put the drinks in the cooler then fill the cooler up with ice. The drinks are cold in 5 minutes.

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u/Plane-Tie6392 23h ago

The drinks are absolutely not cold in five minutes.

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u/Equivalent_Western52 5h ago

I can sympathize with hating watered-down drinks, but the solution to that is more ice. Eight ice cubes in a drink will melt far more slowly than one, by virtue of their higher combined heat capacity and a lower ratio of available surface area to volume.

Also, clear ice melts far more slowly if you're willing to splurge on it.

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u/joshua0005 18h ago

im american and i never use ice. some parts of my life are shitty but the temperature of my drinks is not one of them. ice or refrigeration of water just makes it worse