When visiting a good bar, the drinks, service and ambiance are all important factors for your enjoyment.

But how about that ice?

Perfectly clear cubes and spheres and rectangular prisms... yeah, so nice. So clean. So elegant. Like a monocle for your cocktail.

The best bars have staff dedicated to making and hand-carving ice, often enlisting large machines to make 300-pound blocks to portion out into various shapes and sizes. Which isn't exactly feasible for your kitchen counter.

A more reasonable option is the Klaris Clear Ice Maker, an easy-to-use home ice machine that turns water into crystal-clear ice, so your fine Japanese whisky gets the chill it deserves.

When using traditional ice cube trays and silicon molds, ice freezes equally from all sides. This leads impurities and dissolved gases to become trapped in the center, creating ice that's opaque and cloudy. The way around this is via directional freezing, in which ice is frozen from the bottom up. That's how Klaris works. It builds ice layer by layer, pushing impurities to the surface, leaving you with perfect cubes of transparent ice.

It takes eight to 12 hours to make four 2x2-inch cubes. Run the ice maker twice a day, and you can start building a nice collection to store in your freezer. The cubes are perfect for whiskey pours and cocktails like the Old Fashioned or Negroni, which are typically served on one large rock. But Klaris also sells rectangular molds for drinks served in Collins glasses, like highballs and other refreshing sips.  

The ice maker is only nine pounds and takes up less than one square foot of space, so you can keep the appliance on your counter at all times, or store it away and only take it out when you need it.

Set the machine in the morning and go about your day. It will keep ice cold for six hours after it's made. But the machine also has a delayed start function, so you can set a timer to start making ice two to eight hours in the future.

Stands to reason you'll be thirsty in the future.