Martha Stewart's Clever Ice Cube Hack That Won't Water Down Your Soda

Ice cubes have been having a moment in the spotlight as people freeze all kinds of edible flowers, fresh herbs, and fruit in their ice trays to make decorative and flavorful cubes for their drinks. They also buy the trays in different shapes and sizes, like long cylinders for their Stanley cups and water bottles, or small spheres. However, lifestyle mogul Martha Stewart has always been ahead of the curve and she shared her creative ice cube hack for soda back in 2014.

Stewart revealed that she makes ice cubes out of soda to avoid a diluted beverage. "There are many versions of Martha's Coca-Cola float," she shared in a YouTube video on her channel. "Freeze Coca-Cola in your ice cube trays. This way you can have really cold Coca-Cola and never a diluted Coca-Cola on ice because you're going to chill your Coca-Cola float with Coca-Cola ice." Stewart then demonstrated how to pour soda into an ice cube tray before it's transferred to the freezer. Be aware that soda takes longer to freeze than water does due to the presence of sugar molecules which slow down the process. Stewart then assembled her float with the frozen soda ice cubes, a little liquid soda, and a heaping spoonful of homemade whipped cream.

While Stewart's hack works great for a float or a rum and soda cocktail, it doesn't go over as well in other drinks. (Nobody wants a soda-flavored ice cube in their iced coffee or orange juice.) That said, the concept behind the ice cubes is applicable to keeping other beverages fresh. With a little advance preparation, this hack can be applied to daily drinks or beverages for a gathering with no limit to the amount of different ice cubes you can make.

If you are a martini lover, you can use the ice cube hack to make ice cubes out of olive juice for a better tasting dirty martini. If you want the ice cubes to look decorative, you can even toss a sliced or whole olive into the mix and freeze it with the juice. Then, when the brine-flavored cube eventually melts in your cocktail — or inside the shaker — the martini will take on an extra dirty flavor. The trick can also be applied to iced coffee. Pour cooled drip coffee or cold brew into an ice cube tray and freeze it. Then, when you are preparing your iced coffee, you can use your coffee ice cubes to keep the flavor going strong as long as you sip.