Ice Cold Drinks in Paris

As the warm weather returns to Paris, we pay tribute to Forest Collins, a beloved luminary of the Parisian food and drink world who passed away earlier this year, by revisiting one of her characteristically astute and witty takes on a common expat lament: France’s strange aversion to H2O’s solid incarnation. The savvy writer behind the Paris cocktail blog 52 Martinis, was central to shaping Paris’s cocktail scene and fostering its community. She is sorely missed.

As an American expat in Paris, the question I get most often is: What do you miss most about home? Honestly, this question usually stumps me.

While, of course I miss friends, they come frequently for visits, so it’s less of an issue. In a pinch I can find a reasonable substitute for many of the readily available items from the U.S. that I might miss. If not, said stream of friends usually keep me in a steady supply of goods and sundries that evade me here. But, there’s one thing I can’t ask even my nearest and dearest to lug over in a suitcase: Frozen water. Yes, you heard correctly. The thing I miss most about the US is ice.

When I’m back home, I get a special thrill out of sitting down to a table from the grungiest of roadside diners to the fanciest of upscale eateries and immediately being served a large glass of water full of sparkly, playfully tinkling, cold-making ice! While, in France, you’re lucky to get a small votive candle holder full of warm tap water after asking…twice.

Back when I was still living in the US, I had a girlfriend who had spent a few years in Paris. She was my go-to girl for all things Euro. I observed her foreign affectations and dreamed of the day that I, too, would be an expat. Then one evening we went for drinks. She ordered hers with “no ice.” How very European of her! And, suddenly I saw a possible glitch in my dreams of becoming Frenchified. I can’t envision a life without ice. I can’t envision a life without cocktails. And, a proper cocktail depends on ice for it very existence!

Having lived here for years now, I enjoy learning about and trying to integrate into French culture. But, I still simply can’t understand the French aversion to ice.