lump of cracked ice

Also known as “lump of ice”,“piece of ice”,“lump ice”. Cracked ice is the varied pieces of ice debris (not counting dust and tiny shards) resulting from shattering a large ice cube or a large lump of ice. Cracking ice is fundamentally about increasing the surface area of the ice. Cracked ice is commonly employed in shaken and stirred drinks to speed the chilling and dilution while the drink is agitated. In terms of relative granularity, cracked ice is courser than crushed ice. Cracking ice is typically accomplished by holding a large lump of ice or large ice cube in the hand and sharply striking it with the back of a bar spoon to shatter it. Unwanted ice dust and small shards can then be permitted to drop out between the fingers before moving the cracked ice to glass or shaker. The neologism for this technique is “thwacking”. This technique generally requires practice to perfect.