The ice in our drinks comes in many forms. It can be cubed, it can be spherical, it can come crushed, it can come tubular, and for the most part those are your standard ice designs, but to help promote Japanese whiskey brand Suntory, ad agency TBWA/Hakuhodo decided to 3D print ice cubes that resulted in a variety of intricate shapes and designs.
To be fair this isn’t really 3D printing per se, but rather the agency relied on a CNC router which was programmed to carve 3D images out of blocks of ice. However the process is similar to 3D printing as it involves capturing the image using Autodesk 123D which is then used by the CNC router to carve the designs.
To prevent the ice from melting during the carving process, the CNC router has been chilled to -7 degrees Celsius. A thick drill is also first used to carve out the generate shape before a finer bit is used to add the details. However don’t expect to start seeing these designs in your local bar anytime soon as each carving is reported to have taken a whopping 6 hours.
Users have also been asked to submit their own designs with the top 10 winners taken to a secure location where the whiskey along with their design were given to them to celebrate their victory. Some of the designs are pretty awesome which you can check out in the gallery above.
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