Ice is a beverage ingredient, not a topping. A large-format cube melts slower, so it dilutes the drink less over the time it takes a customer to finish it — which is why cocktail programmes moved away from crushed ice and small cubes. FORMSTEC moulds large-cube and clear-cube silicone trays for bars, cafés and beverage distributors, in the cavity formats that make that difference reproducible.
Why ice format changes the drink
A 30 ml cube has roughly half the surface area per unit volume of a 15 ml cube, so it melts more slowly and releases less water into the glass. Over a ten-minute drink that is the difference between a cocktail that opens up as it warms and one that turns into a diluted version of itself.
Flexible silicone matters here for a practical reason: large cubes are the hardest to release from a rigid tray. A silicone tray releases a 30 ml cube with one twist, no bending, no cracking, and no waiting at the pass during service.
Behind-the-bar heat protection
Pass-through heat is a constant problem on a working bar: a hot pan set down on a stainless counter, a coffee server straight off the machine, an espresso group. Silicone trivets rated to 230 °C sit between the two surfaces without marking the counter, and because they are moulded in solid colour the surface does not chip to a different colour underneath.
For café and bar fit-outs we supply trivets in a Pantone matched to your interior or brand, so the bar top reads as designed rather than assembled.
Distributor and programme supply
Beverage distributors usually carry a narrow range for a wide customer base, so the economics depend on carton density and repeatability rather than on breadth. We can pack to your carton configuration, apply your brand, and hold the specification stable across repeat orders.
For companies building a branded barware line, we also develop new cavity formats from a drawing — a specific cube geometry, a branded tray shape, or a tray sized to a standard glasswasher rack.