Richard Shotton

to put in your drink and cool down on a hot day.

Shaved ice in some ways, you know, goes all the way back at least until the 19th century, the early 19th century when bartenders were experimenting with how to make interesting drinks because shaved ice has a lot of surface area.

It dilutes quickly.

And so it was really good in cold boozy drinks.

To my mind, one of the most interesting aspects of the history of ice is actually the phenomenon of the Iceman.

The Iceman doesn't exist anymore because we don't get ice delivered to our houses.

But in the late 19th, early 20th century, when the ice industry was at its peak, in order to get ice from the ice manufacturers or ice harvesters into people's homes, it required this strong, burly man

who was willing to drive blocks of ice to a person's home.

And these blocks were like 50 pounds each, you know, pick that block up with a pair of tongs, sometimes toss a second 50 pound block over his shoulder with a burlap sack.

and then hike up six flights of stairs to a person's apartment before putting that ice into someone's icebox.

It's really an incredible job and they were ubiquitous and they were everywhere.

And they also, they were the subject of song and story.

I was amazed when I was doing research on the Iceman at how many songs

from this time period had lyrics involving a woman stealing a kiss from the ice man and how many valentine's day cards i found that had puns based on the ice man and i was trying to think about this like why why did america have this romantic fascination with the ice man of all things

And then the more I thought about it, the more I realized of all the delivery men of the day, right?

So there was also, there was the milkman, there was the mailman.

The Iceman was the only one to cross that forbidden threshold and enter into the home.

And he was often home alone with the wife when the husband was out at work.

And so rumors started to fly.

And what also was interesting is that this obsession or I would even say anxiety about the Iceman