Hate diluted drinks? Here are some alternatives to ice-cubes
Fancying an icy cold drink often comes at a price- add ice cubes and risk watering down your drink (unless you guzzle your drinks as soon as they arrive). People have tried to come up with solutions, such as changing the ice cube's shape (spheres have minimum surface area/volume area and melt slower), but if you're looking for efficacy, here are some other solutions.
A literal 'on the rocks' drink
Developed for whiskey connoisseur (fancy word for alcoholics, don't @ me), whiskey stones are a relatively new concept. The stones have an upper hand on ice as they don't melt and ruin a perfectly balanced spirit. A stainless steel option is also available in the market. The only downside: Your 'on the rocks' drink could literally feel like a rock's weight.
'Reusable ice-cubes' are also available in plastic
Further, plastic options are also available at some retailers, but some users complain about a taste difference, and it may not always be food-grade plastic. Of course, if you're not a neophile or care for the environment, you may not like to use plastic anyway.
You could also always pre-chill your drinks!
But if you are not *that* fixated about a watered-down drink that you would want to spend money on alternatives for ice, you could just go for the traditional quick fixes. One of them is pre-chilling a drink. It's easy and feasible if you are home. At restaurants, you can simply ask your server to pre-chill a drink.
Here are some other alternatives for chilling your drinks
In fact, taking the last step a bit further- making ice cubes out of whatever you're drinking- is also a common practice. But this doesn't work for alcoholic drinks since spirits lower the freezing point. The fanciest solution you could find for chilling a drink is freezing tiny fruits, like grapes, and popping them in. It's elegant and it goes pretty well with cocktails.
