Crystal Clear Ice Cube Maker, 4 Large 2"x2"x2" Ice Cubes for Cocktails and Drinks, Silicone Mold for Pure, Bartender-Quality Ice - Great for Hosting and Entertaining, Whiskey Gifts for Men

UPDATE after one year:I'd buy this again in a heartbeat. If you care about cocktails, glassware and serving the best possible drinks to your friends and family, get this. In my earlier review I mentioned bottled or filtered water; update - totally unnecessary. Tap water is perfectly fine. Our freezer is set to 5F degrees. I don't think there's anything magical about the water or its temperature.Assemble the mold, fill it to within a quarter or eighth of an inch of the top, carefully place it in your freezer, then leave it alone for 16 hours. Take it out, LET IT SIT ON THE COUNTER FOR A COUPLE OF MINUTES, then grasp the silicone molds with your thumbs and index fingers and use your other 6 fingers to push downward on the rigid insulated portion; it should come off fairly easily.Then separate the lower silicone mold from the upper mold. You don't have to be gentle here: the molds are durable. If your freezing period was correct, the lower mold should be a mixture of ice and water.I remove the ice from the bottom of the cube mold by tapping it with a wooden spoon (over the sink). Once it's all off, put the upper mold face down on the counter, and push down on it... the cubes should loosen and come out of the mold. Immediately put them in the freezer. There's a storage unit available. If my storage unit is full, I just leave the new cubes in the upper mold.We recently purchased some Art Deco old fashioned glasses from Amazon and they're beautiful, but a bit too small for these cubes. So I take a (sharp) serrated knife and carve them into rough looking roundish cubes that look more interesting than the plain cubes. See 2nd pic above.TL/DR: Buy this if you care about cocktailsI’ve been using this for a week and a half, and it works really well. With the freezer set at 4°, it takes between 14 and 16 hours to make four beautiful, clear ice cubes. And guests really notice!Update: for best results, use filtered or bottled water. Fill to the fill line, let it sit for a while, then tap the housing to release any air bubbles lurking inside. With the freezer set at 5°, it takes about 16 hours to get fully formed cubes in the top mold and the proper icy/slushy mixture in the lower section. Do NOT use warm water to remove that icy mix from the underside of the top mold: you’ll damage the cubes and they’ll end up lopsided. I usually tap the partly formed “cubes” from the lower mold (which adhere to the top mold) with a wooden spoon to dislodge the extra ice. Then you can pop out your beautiful clear cubes. After sitting in the freezer a while (I put them in larger silicone molds I no longer use), I store them in a large ziplock bag. Still happy, still 5 stars.2nd update: the only issue I’ve had is an occasional bubble or two in the cubes. This is what I’ve landed on as my approach:1. Put the lower silicone mold in the insulated housing2. Fill the lower mold with bottled or filtered water3. Insert the upper mold into the lower mold4. Fill upper mold to fill line5. Carefully place in freezer set to ~5°F6. DO NOT TOUCH, MOVE, JOSTLE THE MOLD for at least 14 hours7. Remove from freezer after ~16 hours have passed, remove cubes8. Cheers!

The media could not be loaded. The perfect ice cube was the last piece of the puzzle to making my very best Old Fashioned. Before discovering this product, I conducted countless experiments trying all the suggestions on Google from boiling water to using distilled water and everything in between to no avail. I was about to give up when I stumbled across the True Cubes ice cube maker on Amazon. I figured I had nothing to lose so gave it a shot and couldn’t be more impressed with how well this product works. Alas! A perfectly square, BUBBLE FREE ice cube. Why is this important? Let me tell you. The right ice cube in a cocktail is as important as the the tires on a car. When ice has bubbles, it melts significantly faster and, not to mention, is visually unappealing. When ice melts slower, it allows for a broader range of the flavor profile to release translating into the last sip of your cocktail being as enjoyable as the first.The product itself is super easy to use and I’ll share a few tips I discovered along the way- After it’s fully assembled, I fill filtered water with a funnel while only pouring into one square of the upper chamber. This prevents any bubbles from sticking to the sides of the filling square. Based on your freezer temperature setting (mine is at 4°), you’ll want to pull the cube maker out of the freezer after about 27-30 hours. It’s easiest to pull the pieces apart when some of the water in the bottom chamber remains unfrozen. It still takes a little work to pull apart but the end result is worth the effort. In order to keep all things equal, I make the next batch only after the cube maker has warmed back to room temperature. Cheers!

Science works. In this case the engineering design of the product forces water to freeze from the top down, instead of from all sides. The unidirectional freezing forces impurity and air to be pushed from the top layer down into the bottom, resulting in clear large ice in the top 4 cubicles. After reading several other reviews prior to purchase, especially those negative, so can address some of the concerns.1. TIMING: First timing is critical to ease of use! Take out of freezer within the recommended window of 18-22 hrs, depending on your freezer temperature. Through experimentation, I’ve found that the cubes are more clear with slower and longer freezing. There are other reviews that show clear cubes in as little as 12 hrs, but have found slower is better. It allows the time to push the bubbles and unwanted contaminants down into the bottom tray. Check on the product when it’s close to finish; pull it out and tap the side. If cubes are incomplete then bubbles will float up to the frozen level. If cubes are complete, you will not see bubbles come up into the top section.2. SHAPE OF ICE AND PRODUCT: Use care and finesse with the silicon to prevent disfigurement and tearing. Warm water is your friend to release the 4 beautiful cubes from the top tray. Use warm water to help melt the ice underneath the top tray until you can gently pick off the remaining ice beneath,. Then firmly press out the four cubes onto a towel or container for storage.3. MICROBUBBLES IN CUBES: The first couple times, I noticed some layers of micro-bubbles within the cubes as others had noted. Freezers have thermostats that kick the cooling on and off to maintain freezer temperature. The freezing cold air blows, cooling the freezer periodically. These cooling periods accelerate the freezing and traps some micro bubbles. I’ve eliminated these layers of bubbles by blocking the fan from blowing directly on the cubes in the freezer. A paper plate or something similar can be set up to block the directed cold air to mitigate the alternating periods of freezing. The result, consistent clear cubes that can be seen in pics attached!4. FILL LEVEL CAUTION: Ensure that you consistently fill below the fill line. The product will siphon out onto the freezer shelf if you are even close to the fill line (pictures included). If you have issues with this then I recommend placing in an external tray in the freezer to prevent the mess.