You ever get the feeling you have family, friends, co-workers who, well, while they seem perfectly normal are really concealing some bizarre, twisted secrets?
Back in the old days, when American Literature was actually a) literature, and b) taught, we read Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown. Young Brown strolled one evening out into the woods and stumbled across a gathering of all the folks in his colonial village, all of them presumably upstanding, decent citizens. To his horror, these supposedly good folk were engaged in some kind of diabolical shenanigans, attending an Ivory Merchant film festival or something like that. It’s been a while since we read it.
Even so, it caused you to think about what might really be going on with, oh, let’s say your Aunt Meg, for example. She brings that Chex Mix to Thanksgiving each year, the one everyone raves about and asks for the recipe, and she cagily replies with a cherubic smile that the secret ingredient is just oodles of love. And then you’re watching the news one night and there’s Aunt Meg in handcuffs, being hauled off to face charges of being a mid-level dealer for a Venezuelan cartel. And you think to yourself, “Oh, so that was the secret ingredient.”
That’s how we felt when our friend Greg confided in us he was toying with the idea of spending about $350 on a machine that made ice and we said that’s what those trays in the refrigerator top are for and he said by the way, we are the last people in the civilized world whose refrigerator doesn’t have an automatic ice maker, but no, this isn’t that kind of ice.
“It’s like Sonic ice,” he said. As if that explained it all.
He saw our blank face and added, “You do know about Sonic ice?”
We didn’t. Not only did we not know about Sonic ice, we had no idea of the enthusiasm it generates. We’d been exactly like Goodman Brown, never once guessing that below the placid and normal surface of many in our community, there lurks—let’s be honest, the word “cult” comes to mind, devoted to the ice of Sonic Drive-Ins.
Think we’re exaggerating, don’t you? Consider:
--A company, Scotsman Ice Systems, is devoted to, as they put it, producing and distributing machines that provide “ice the world demands,” and one of their perennial ice-making best sellers is nugget ice of the sort served at Sonic. “Luv the Nug,” is their slogan. Really.
--There are websites that explain which Sonic locations will sell you bags of their ice. (Word on the street is that you can score some at more than one local Sonic. Knock on the back door twice, pause, then once more. When they answer, ask for Chuck.)
--There is a Facebook page devoted to Sonic Ice Lovers which posts pictures and memories and descriptions of great experiences related to the ice, some of which are so graphic and lush they are right on the edge of being not safe for reading at work. One Ms. Stacey Owen posts there, wondering if there might be a recovery program for Sonic ice addicts. It’s possible she was kidding.
It should not surprise you that as our being something of a Dining Sophisticate, we had not eaten at Sonic. Doubtless that’s why we knew nothing of the Ice Cult.
Sonic Drive-in ice comes in those “Love the Nug” nuggets—that resemble the littlest Lego blocks, the ones you step on when you get up in the middle of the night if your house has ever had children anywhere near it. Little, elongated cubes. Because it’s small, it is—lovingly described by its connoisseurs—“soft.” That is, it’s easy to chew on. We’ve never been afflicted with this compulsion. Apparently, chewing on ice, however is what allows lots of people to make it through the day without choking the life out of their colleagues at the office or many of their close relatives.
(We hasten to add that there is a medical condition, pagophagia, which we discovered in doing the research for this article. Those afflicted exhibit a craving for iced drinks and munching on the ice itself. We would venture a joke here, but a) there is probably a strong lobby militating for pagophagic rights and we’re guessing they have very little in the way of a sense of humor, and b) there could be a fundraiser for a pagophagia cure and we don’t want to queer our chances of being asked to host it, since in this paragraph alone we’re also guessing we have raised more consciousness about it than anyone in America.)
What’s even more important than the texture of Sonic ice, we learn, is its ability to absorb flavor.
“Seriously,” Greg asked, “You’ve never had a Sonic Cherry Limeade?”
Let’s pause right here to make a point: We while we were kind of kidding about the Dining Sophisticate thing, we have been blessed to have downed some amazing fluids. It would be conceited to go into detail. (’66 Le Montrachet, ’81 Riesling Clos Sainte Hune, ’78 Domaine Romanee-Conti. We know you wanted to know.) Know, however, that if we had to choose between any of those and a good cherry limeade, it’d be a very, very tough call. That’s how highly we think of that particular libation.
So Sonic ice or no, we were already planning a trip.
There are distractions, to be sure, once you have arrived at Sonic. Exactly, according to their menu 1,392,085 different fountain drinks, if you consider all the possible combinations. With flavors like mango, blue coconut, green apple, and blackberry pineapple. We stick to the plan, however, and go with the cherry limeade. With a double cheeseburger and fries, which seems like a decent pairing. . (You pull into a slot in the parking lot, by the way, and order from a pole-mounted menu there, and eat in your car. Eliminates that pesky valet parking.)
Let us say that this is an altogether superior cherry limeade. Small batch, obviously. Intense, with a refreshing lack of malo, berry-like, perfumed with a hint of citric notes—that was probably the limes. We particularly liked the touch of a cherry tossed into the cup with the stem captured by the lip and lid of the cup, so the fruit hangs there, adding to the flavor. Next time we spring for a good Burgundy, we’re going to ask the wine steward, “Hey, Philippe, could you hook a stemmed cherry on the glass? Merci.”
But what about the ice? It was, well, nice. Nice ice. It had almost a slushy texture, yet still maintaining its “full bodied-ness.” It does, indeed, acquire something of the flavor of the limeade. We could still taste it once all the limeade was gone, along with the cheeseburger. (And, in the interest of scientific inquiry, after we’d finished the other half of our spouse’s foot long Coney.) We can see where you’d kill most of your cherry limeade, or one of the other almost million and a half drinks at Sonic, leaving just enough in the bottom of the cup so the nuggets could marinade and you could crunch your way down the highway. It could be addictive.
And so while it seems a little like growing your own poppies, you can now have Sonic style ice right in your own home. FirstBuild, a start-up company devoted to producing new technologies—they’re the folks who gave you that Bluetooth activated sous vide thermometer—how did you ever live without that?—is offering a home version of an icemaker (right) that will churn out those chilly little nuggets in the comfort of your own home.
They call their product, incidentally, “opal nugget ice.” Probably if they called it “Sonic ice,” there might be some turf wars. It’s been reviewed. One woman exclaimed in the “Comments” section: “This will be the most beneficial item I will ever buy in my lifetime!” We were wondering where toilet tissue! and soap! are on her list. Then we remembered our friend, Greg. Who is, even as you read this, pleading the case to his wife that their house really, really, really needs a Sonic style ice maker. And who otherwise seems like a perfectly normal guy.
Sure. Good ol’ Greg. You know, perfectly “normal.”
