Christmas is the time to pull out all the stops and impress your guests….and with the ongoing cost of living that can mean making smaller, craftier changes…including giving the ice used for our festive cocktails a zhuzh.
John Lewis said it’s seeing sales of quirky ice moulds up by over half (+55%) compared to last year, particularly during Autumn / Winter of this year as entry level price-points are becoming more popular, and online searches for ‘ice cubes’ were also up by 43% compared to last week.
With current bestsellers moulds including the Uberstar Giant Silicone Ice Cube Tray, Final Touch Silicone Ice Ball Moulds and the Lékué Star Ice Cube Tray, they’re being boosted in popularity by the “Ice Cube Restock Christmas Theme” which has currently over 15.3M views, as people are looking for ways to add some more sparkle to their tipple.
Pamela Pergolesi, cookshop ,erchandiser, said: “Our tipples are having a glow-up this Christmas, as stars, diamonds and groovy designs have taken over as the fun choice as ice for our drinks.
“It’s a low-cost, cheap alternative to add some creativity to our displays for our guests, helping in turn to make our festivities extra special.”
One of the most popular additions to ‘show stopper ice cubes’ is rosemary – often known as the Christmas herb, which regularly features alongside orange peel and frozen cranberries.
In the last two weeks, sales of rosemary are currently up 11% on last year, and searches in the last week on waitrose.com are up 69%. The herb also features heavily in edible wreaths and Christmas garlands – with #ediblewreath garnering 1M views on Tik Tok. Searches for Pomegranates on waitrose.com are also up 64%.
Waitrose’s Cooks’ Ingredients rosemary, either cut or a potted format, are the perfect options that can be trimmed to the exact size of your wreath, to add the ultimate festive feel. Separately, our Cooks’ Ingredients frozen cranberries have seen sales increase by 42% in the last week, searches for cranberries in the past week have also been up 63% on waitrose.com.
