GENERAL ALL OVER NOTE: In these hot “Dog Days of Summer”, the sort of “in-bred” reaction for us ALL is to pour beverages “over ice” to cool both them and ultimately ourselves off…DON’T !!!
The BIG fallacy here is that WE fail to take into account what’s happening…and ultimately wind up with a “watered down” drink as the bottom of the glass approaches…and a taste that gets progressively worse as that happens too.
Instead of “regular water ice”, use those trays and some extra" of all the different juices / ingredients to make your “ice cubes” from them instead. That way; as they melt all that goes into the drink is more of the drink ingredients anyway…no more watered down drinks; no more YUCKIE taste…and still have the benefits of keeping things cold.
Do you have to do this ahead of time? …most definitely. But it is something manageable…when the trays finish “making” just dump the cubes in a zip-lock bag (remember to LABEL it first); re-load the tray, and go again.
For those times when you are using a Punch Bowl and entertaining…the last thing you want to do with this time is to have to be running back and forth to replenish the ice,SO DON’T !!
Use the method above …BUT…instead of using the conventional ice trays, use already emptied concentrated frozen juice containers. Once these forms of “cubes” have finished “making”, just run a little warm water all over the outside of the container until the “cube” releases…then bag in the zip-lock bag; re-load, and go again. These “cubes” should last easily 4X the regular cube.
Also consider freezing a big BLOCK of juice with slices of different fruits in it…not only do you get the ingredient benefit…but also the color that the different fruits provide. Along the same lines…consider freezing CHUNKS of fruit itself for “cubes”…and reap the same benefits.