The new cocktail bar Slurp, located on Chattanooga’s Southside, is taking local craft cocktails to the next level by offering artisanal ice that was formerly used in the temporary skating rink Ice on the Landing, which closed for the season earlier this week.
“Using quality ice is absolutely essential for making an incredible cocktail,” said Slurp’s head bartender Jesse Patavia. “So, why settle for ordinary, bland ice in your $16 cocktail? Our ice isn’t some purified, goody-two-shoes ice. Our ice has character.”
“You can taste the subtle, exquisite flavors that can only come from the debris from literally hundreds of pairs of ice skates,” said Patavia.
Each ice cube in a Slurp cocktail is hand-cut by an ice chef in the walk-in freezer of the restaurant, named “The Pompous Ice Hole,” and Patavia said that Slurp offers “sustainable drinking,” since they use re-purposed ice that would have otherwise just gone to waste.
“It might sound odd to use skating rink ice, but after one drink, you’ll be a believer,” said Patavia. “You can join us and be a brave culinary explorer, just like the first people who tried kopi luwak coffee, made from coffee beans that have passed through an Indonesian civet’s digestive system.”
