3D on the rocks

April 3, 2015 11:14 AM

CNC router+ice+whiskey=

Suntory-whisky Blue! (SLAdWeek)

posted by sexyrobot (21 comments total)

Would be a good Museum of Jurassic Technology exhibit.
posted by larrybob at 11:20 AM on April 3, 2015

That looks nothing like Bill Murray.
posted by Artw at 11:20 AM on April 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

Cool stuff, literally. I wonder if there's an optimum setup (temperature, humidity, water purity) that keeps the edges of the ice block from shattering or chipping?
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:25 AM on April 3, 2015

Ha...I wondered the same thing and figured it was just a matter of switching to a (food-safe?) low-temperature silicone lubricant.
posted by sexyrobot at 11:26 AM on April 3, 2015

Beautiful.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:46 AM on April 3, 2015

If it's for a commercial, they likely don't use food-safe lubricant, much less actual whiskey.
posted by ooga_booga at 12:05 PM on April 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

I admire the forbearance of the individual who elected not to include an ice cube shaped like a glass, itself full of whiskey and containing a smaller glass-shaped ice cube within it (and so on ad infinitum). In similar circumstances I am not sure I would demonstrate such discipline
posted by aparrish at 12:06 PM on April 3, 2015 [7 favorites]

That's really, really cool. For some reason the astronaut looked confused, to me.

I admire the forbearance of the individual who elected not to include an ice cube shaped like a glass, itself full of whiskey

eh, close enough
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:15 PM on April 3, 2015 [4 favorites]

Hmm, they *could* technically have scanned the objects into 123d and then rendered the glasses and whisky in blender.
posted by quirkyturky at 12:56 PM on April 3, 2015

what's called a CNC router (and a process that's kind of inverse 3-D printing)
That seemed weird to me, like CNC had not been around for 50 years and was mainstream before 3-D printing became hip.
Or describing the postal service as a kind of manual email.
posted by MtDewd at 1:07 PM on April 3, 2015 [14 favorites]

They opened a pop-up bar in Tokyo and served patrons whiskey with "their own, one-of-a-kind milled ice cube," so they are, in fact, both beautiful and practical. [Full disclosure: I run an advertising & effectiveness competition. The agency entered this campaign, so I had access to the full case brief. It won two silver medallions.]
posted by feistycakes at 1:25 PM on April 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

I would have expected a 4- or 5-axis mill. I guess they manually rotate the piece to get each side done?
posted by GuyZero at 1:58 PM on April 3, 2015

Would be a good Museum of Jurassic Technology exhibit.

larrybob, that was the first thing I thought of, too.
posted by jjwiseman at 2:27 PM on April 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm going to guess that these are renders. There are three ways to do anything: the easy way, the hard way, and the marketing way which is to claim you did it the hard way but actually just fake it on a computer.
posted by Pyry at 3:18 PM on April 3, 2015

They are real but the glass is actually four foot tall.
posted by Artw at 4:26 PM on April 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

(the whiskey is real)
posted by Artw at 4:31 PM on April 3, 2015

Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut!

Don't try to fool me. Don't pretend you don't understand. Do you even understand what we are trying to do? Suntory is very exclusive. The shape of the ice is important. It's an expensive drink. This is No. 1. Now do it again, and you have to feel that this is exclusive. O.K.? This is not an everyday whiskey you know.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 7:59 PM on April 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm wondering how they can do Suntory marketing with ice shaped like Batman and Mickey Mouse. I can't imagine they got a license to use those for alcohol commercials.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:44 PM on April 3, 2015

Speaking of Japanese drink bars, I visited one in Osaka a few times (called "Cabina") and I was charmed by the way that bartenders spent their free time chiseling cubes of ice into spheres of ice with ice picks. Each drink would come with a fresh ice sphere only slightly smaller than the glass. Once your drink was consumed, they simply threw out the remaining (90% of the) sphere and gave you a fresh one with your next drink!
posted by WaylandSmith at 4:36 PM on April 4, 2015

Oh. I have a mold for that.
posted by Artw at 5:30 PM on April 4, 2015

Kinda neat. I too wondered if they are "for real", but I think there's enough evidence that they really did this with ice. I guess they could chill the alcohol and the glass to below freezing, which might help make the little sculptures last longer.

Is the one just before Godzilla supposed to be a Mantis Shrimp? For whatever reason, I'm not really registering just what it is.
posted by doctor tough love at 4:10 PM on April 6, 2015