Best clear ice makers

A countertop clear ice machine solves exactly one problem: it removes the eighteen-hour wait. It does not make clearer ice than a good insulated mold, and it does not make bigger ice. It makes the same result available now rather than tomorrow, for many times the money and a permanent piece of counter.

That is a real problem for some people and a non-problem for others. If you entertain unpredictably, or you have discovered that the mold in your freezer is empty exactly when you want it, the machine is buying you a habit you could not sustain. If you drink two spirit-forward drinks a week at a time you control, the machine is buying you nothing a mold does not already give you.

The full argument, including the running costs and the failure modes of each, is in clear ice molds vs ice machines. Read that before spending here.

These are selections made on published specification, mechanism and owner-reported behavior - not on test results, because we have not run these machines. The axes we weighted:

• Whether clarity is the design goal. A machine that produces clear ice as a headline feature is engineered around a controlled freeze. A machine that produces clear-ish ice as a side effect is not, and the difference shows in the middle of the cube.
• Piece size and geometry. Consistency matters as much as size, because a predictable piece is a predictable dilution.
• Yield against footprint. Every countertop machine is a permanent occupant. Yield has to justify the square footage it takes.
• Reservoir vs plumbing. A reservoir machine can live anywhere. A plumbed machine is a different purchase with an installer attached.
• Maintenance honesty. Every water appliance needs cleaning. Machines that make that easy stay in service; machines that do not get unplugged within a year.

The single most expensive mistake in this category is buying a nugget machine because it was the well-reviewed ice maker, and then discovering that nugget ice ruins the drink you bought it for.

Nugget ice is small, soft and porous. It has an enormous surface area for its mass, which is why it chills a soda almost instantly and why it is a genuinely superior ice for anything long and carbonated. That same surface area means it gives up water into the drink fast. In an old fashioned - a drink whose whole structure is spirit, a little sugar and controlled dilution - that is the opposite of what you want.

Clear ice vs nugget ice goes further into where each one genuinely wins, including the case for owning both.

Every countertop ice machine runs a compressor, and a compressor cycling in an open-plan kitchen is audible in the next room. Owners rarely complain about this in the first week and frequently mention it at six months. If the machine will live in a room where people are talking or a television is on, that matters.

Counter space is the other underestimated cost. These are not appliances you put away; they need a permanent home with a power outlet, clearance for airflow at the back, and access to the reservoir. Measure that before ordering, in the same spirit as measuring a freezer shelf for a mold.

Finally, maintenance. A machine that holds standing water needs the reservoir emptied and cleaned on a schedule, or the ice starts tasting of the machine. This is the failure mode that ends most countertop ice makers' working lives, and it is entirely preventable.

A machine gets you ice. It does not get you the right glass, and a 2-inch cube in a 9oz rocks glass leaves very little room for the pour - see rocks glass size guide if your glassware predates your ice.

It also does not get you spheres, unless the specific model makes them. If the sphere is the thing you actually want, a cube machine plus an ice ball press is a more reliable route than hoping a machine's sphere mode produces something you like.

And it does not change what ice does in a shaker. Shaking wants fast chilling and deliberate dilution, which is what ordinary freezer ice is for. Using machine-made clear ice in a shaker is not wrong, it is just spending your good ice on the one application that cannot tell.