Ice

Beer.
Ice basements were very common before the age of industrial cooling.

nptel.ac.in/courses/112105129/pdf/RAC Lecture 1.pdf

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhchāl

You're not supposed to be drinking the ice itself, are you?

>snow to ice
I think whenever possible, storing ice directly is a lot more efficient.

Only way to get direct ice is to cut it from a frozen lake, which is extremely dangerous if done on a large scale

Nope, snow to ice is simple, efficient and you save the transport costs.

>very common
No. My grandma grew up without electricity and she waited a very long time (we actually offered her) to get a refrigerator, she simply had no use of it. I think 99.9% of the population had no use of ice back in the days.

Cool story bro, that doesn't change the fact that ice basements were very common buildings.
>Muh granny did shit in the bushes, outhouses were very uncommon!

This, is impressive how they got some ice in the desert

Is it?

I know that frozen rivers are death traps because the current will drag you away from the hole as soon as you fall in, but frozen lakes seem like a relatively safe working environment as long as you tie everyone off, work in groups, and have a fire ready on shore.

Yeah, or you know, you could just rake the snow together in front of your door and just use that.

For bigger breweries in the 19th century with large cellars they often did create small ponds and hacked ice blocks from there, but using compressed snow was a long time favourite since medieval for smaller ice caves and such.

>very common
No. It's a very specific and rare facility. And rather recent at that.

Every source I can find mentions using ice directly, though piling snow instead is not ruled out. Ice is more dense than snow and thus easier to insulate. For safety they would probably use shallow lakes, intentionally create floodbeds or use something like this
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisgalgen
(an "Ice-gallow", a kind of structure to grow and harvest icicles)

Says you're wrong right here de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiskeller
>inb4 I don't speak master race

If "one in every town with a brewerey" is specific and rare for you...

>Muh granny did shit in the bushes
Fun fact: that's true. There was a small shed in the backyard, that thing terrified me.

>And rather recent at that.
>first mentioned, 1780 BC

It doesn’t matter what you think, anecdotes aren’t evidence.

Not him, but technically they are. They might not be very persuasive evidence, but they are evidence.

>Southern Europe/Middle East
>Before 18th century

thank y'all
in the former regions of what used to be the roman empire i always thought they would somehow store those in diversion tunnels beneath the aqueducts

>i meant before this
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator#Refrigeration_technology

which already explained it all
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_house_(building)#Southern_ice_houses
>so never mind

>especially the middle east and north-sub saharan africa?

In hotter climates, they usually didn't.

This is why as a general rule the closer you get to the equator, the more spicy the food (mostly to keep it edible by masking the smell of rot, which happens more quickly as temperatures rise, and for antimicrobial properties).

Before the Columbian exchange, they spiced with anything they could find. After the Portuguese and Spanish brought chili peppers to the hot climates, they spread like wildfire.

Guys, you're linking US modern stuff when we're talking about ancient times in southern old world, what's wrong with you? There was no use of ice there, period.

Or just live bucket of water outside for the night.