How a Massachusetts man invented the global ice market | Hacker News Reader

How a Massachusetts man invented the global ice market

bostonglobe.com

74 pointsbwanab6 comments

India's underrated, unheralded and inimitable columnist, Vikram Doctor wrote a fantastic column last year about the Indian connection in ice trade | http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/onmyplate/cold-com...

The first few trade ships brought in ice simply as a ballast with the reasoning that if any remained at the end of journey - they'll just sell it.

Here's a quote that HNers might appreciate:

"And this is just what happened in India, with the added benefit that Tudor reaped tons of admiration from the British for his judicious pricing. Many of the Times reports are full of estimations about the near-loss he was making and how this had to be solved in order for this precious trade to continue. There can be few comparable examples where customers have been as eager for their supplier to make a profit as with the British and Boston’s Ice King, as Tudor was called."

The creation of the ice trade is covered in entertaining detail in chapter 4 of Bill Bryson's At Home [1], including a story of how the first speculative shipload to London was held so long by Customs trying to figure out how to tax it, that most of it melted.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/At-Home-Short-History-Private/dp/07679...

The ice business was very big in Michigan. In fact the only museum in the world about the ice trade is located here in Port Huron:

http://www.knowltonsicemuseum.org/main.html?src=%2F

Port Huron is North of Detroit on the Canadian border across from Sarnia. I've been there and its definitely a worthwhile place to see if you're in the area.

These guys are still going - http://tudorice.com/

Friends with one of the main dudes there. Its cool to see how the business can still exist, even today. (albeit with a slightly different business model :)

"To this day, Europeans rarely put ice in their drinks, but Americans do."

What? Where did this come from? I live in Europe and can hardly imagine a cocktail without an ice. Well yes, nobody is going to put a good scotch "on rocks" (at least nobody who knows the basics of whiskey), but that's a different story.

I've lived in many places around Europe, and I've lived among Americans from all over the US, and I definitely noticed a difference. Perhaps you're right about cocktails, but in most cases American used ice where the Europeans didn't (a glass of coke being a prime example). They would even did this in winter, which always seemed funny to 'us' Europeans.

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