World’s poshest ICE is harvested from ancient glacier and shipped 9,000 miles to Dubai to melt in influencers’ cocktails
INFLUENCERS in Dubai are now able to sip posh frozen cocktails thanks to pieces of ice scooped from Arctic ancient glaciers and shipped 9,000 miles to UAE.
The 100,000-year-old ice is extracted from detached glaciers in the fjords of Greenland before being shipped to posh bars in Dubai to end up in frozen daiquiris.
Startup company Arctic Ice, based in the country’s capital Nuuk, harvests the ice – which is thought to be cleaner and doesn’t melt easily – and exports it overseas.
A spokesperson for the firm said: “The ice is sourced directly from the natural glaciers in the Arctic which have been in a frozen state for over 100,000 years.
“These parts of the ice sheets have not been in contact with any soils or contaminated by pollutants produced by human activities.
“This makes Arctic Ice the cleanest H20 on Earth.”
Using a specialised boat with a crane, they scour the fjords around the Nuuk in search of an uncontaminated form of ice that has never been in contact with the top or bottom of the glacier.
After identifying a suitable section, they extract the ice – compressed over millennia – before placing it in a plastic crate.
When the boat is full, they ship the crates to the capital to fill up a larger, refrigerated shipping container that then sails to Denmark.
The ice is loaded onto another ship before travelling to Dubai where it is sold by the distributor Natural Ice.
The ice then ends up in drinks sold in glitzy bars in the upmarket emirate.
It is common for glacial ice to be used in drinks in Greenland and Arctic Ice hopes that it will become popular in the UAE too.
The company’s co-founder Malik V Rasmussen said there are no air bubbles in the ice, causing it to melt more slowly than normal ice.
The glacial water is also purer than the frozen mineral water typically used in bars in Dubai.
Despite launching in 2022, the company only recently shipped its first 20 metric tonnes of pure ice to Dubai.
Rasmussen said he hopes to introduce a new major revenue stream for Greenland, which still remains economically dependent on Denmark.
He said: “In Greenland, we make all our money from fish and from tourism.
“For a long time, I have wanted to find something else that we can profit from.”
He added: “Helping Greenland in its green transition is actually what I believe I was brought into this world to do.”
To help the environment, Arctic Ice said it plans to use carbon-neutral vessels for shipping in the near future.