Song of Fire and Ice Cocktail

by Andrea Decker, Fleet Science Center Adult Programs Manager 

If you saw the After Dark takeover of FLEETtv, you probably saw Andrea creating a wonderful cocktail. So, here's the recipe to the amazing and sciency cocktail inspired by the song of fire and ice—you know, from the super famous series.

What do I need?

· Sphere ice molds

· Flavor Injector

· Long bamboo (or other wood) appetizer picks (they have to be long enough to go through the ice sphere.

· Cocktail Shaker

· Jigger

· Cubed ice

· Martini Glass or Tumbler wide enough for the ice sphere

· Reusable Straw

· Cocktail Umbrella

· Bar Spoon or cocktail swizzler

· 1 oz of dark 80 proof rum

· ¾ oz of Cointreau

· ½ oz of lime juice

· ¼ oz of simple syrup

· A splash of orange juice

· A dash of orange bitters

· 1/3 oz of 151 proof rum

· Long matches or a long neck lighter

What do I do?

To make the ice sphere:

1. Close the ice sphere molds and fill them with water through the hole on top of the lid

2. Put the ice sphere mold into the freezer for about 1 hour and 15 min (every freezer is different, so you might need to add some time to this. We want the ball to have a ¼ inch shell)

3. Turn the ice sphere mold upside down and leave in the freezer for another hour and 15 min (roughly, your freezer might need less or more time)

4. Remove the ice sphere from the mold and place it into the lid of the mold.

5. Heat up your flavor injector (preferably not over a candle or a match as that might leave some dark residue) and inject it into the top of the ice sphere

6. Remove all the water that is still in the ice sphere with the syringe

7. Heat the syringe again and poke a hole on one side of the ice sphere in the upper quarter of the ice sphere.

8. Insert the bamboo appetizer stick and push it straight through to the other side of the ice sphere.

9. Heat your syringe again and where the bamboo stick hits the inside of the ball, make another whole and push the bamboo stick through, so it comes out again.

10. Put a few drops of the water you extracted from the ice sphere on each of the holes and put the ice sphere with the bamboo stick into the freezer until you are ready to server you cocktail. Make the cocktail before removing the ice sphere from the freezer

To make the cocktail:

1. Put the dark 80 proof rum, the Cointreau, the lime juice, the simple syrup, the orange juice and the bitters into your shaker

2. Add 6-8 ice cubes and shake for 15 sec, so the drink is really nice and cold when we put it into the ice sphere

3. Strain your drink into a glass

To put the cocktail together:

1. As soon as the cocktail is mixed, remove the ice sphere from your freezer

2. Use the syringe to put the cocktail into the ice sphere through the hole on the top (the same hole you used to extract the water from the ice sphere)

3. Pour the 151 proof rum into a new (empty) cocktail glass. A martini glass or a tumbler wide enough to hold the ice sphere work best. You don’t want a glass that is too tall.

4. Light the 151 proof rum on fire with a long match or a long neck lighter! Safety first! A short match or a short lighter will likely result in burned fingers!

5. Place the ice sphere into the glass over the flame. The ends of the bamboo pick will rest on the rim of the glass holding the ice sphere in place just about an inch above the flame

6. Watch what happens!

7. Once the cocktail is in the glass, remove the bamboo pick from the ice sphere and add the ice sphere to the cocktail

8. Wait a little bit before drinking as the glass might be hot!

9. Enjoy!

What’s going on?

1. Ice sphere: Ice freezes from the outside in and from the top to bottom. Since the top of the ice sphere will freeze first, we put it upside down after a certain amount of time, before the ball is fully frozen. Then we wait a bit for the bottom of the ball, which is now on top to freeze also. Just long enough that there will be about a ¼ inch ice shell, but not all the water in the ball will be frozen

2. Song of Fire and Ice: the 151 proof rum means it has enough alcohol in it that we can light it on fire. The flame slowly melts the ice sphere from the bottom, releasing the drink into the glass and dousing the flame.