The American Way of Ice Cubes

The stereotype that other countries have of Americans is that we are all rich, fat, and armed. There are other things the rest of the world finds strange abut Americans, like how loud we speak, how we smile too much, and how we bare our teeth when we smile. British immigrant Laurence Brown looks at another American stereotype- our use of ice cubes. We feel the need to put them in our drinks at all times, even in winter. One reason is because it is much hotter in the US than it ever is in Britain, where it rains a lot and they don't even put screens in their windows because it's too cool for mosquitos. But that isn't the whole story.

The American obsession with ice has to do with our history, from back when ice was one of our biggest exports. It's one of the peculiarities of having a nation that is so big that it covers several climates, and since there was a lot of money to be made, we got used to having ice all the time. But we also need refrigerators and freezers because it's a long way to the supermarket, and we don't want to go there every day. Yes, Laurence gives us a concise history of ice in America in his latest video. There's a 50-second skippable ad at two minutes in.