Ice house

But on that topic too, apparently even Alexander the Great, around 300 BC, he loved his snow and ice flavored with honey and nectar.

So yeah, so he would take advantage of those ice houses as well.

And then the Roman Empire also noted for having these ice houses.

They even had shops where you could purchase snow and ice and these kind of concoctions that would be similar to sorbet.

Not quite ice cream, but that kind of idea, apparently, you know, before you go into the Coliseum and see some gladiators face off.

So as you can imagine, of course, only the rich could really build these ice houses.

And they were introduced in Britain around 1660 based on the Italian models.

And they were commonly brick lined dome structures with most of their volume, again, underground.

It's all grown back again.

And, uh, the great thing, I mean, the whole point of, of ice houses of this kind is that they were invisible in that they're protected and underground, in effect.

Otherwise, it's too much a prey to the fluctuations of temperature and so on.

You've got to keep the ice frozen.

And we reckon that's about, what, 25-foot drop maybe? Quite, quite a substantial drop.

It, uh, drops down a long way, yes.

Some of these ice houses were really egg-shaped, but this is, has a flat bottom.

But as you can see, it's dome-shaped.

And today, we're headed to a small town in South Bristol, Maine, for an old-fashioned ice harvest.

Thompson's Ice House is about 90 minutes north from Portland, Maine, and it's one of the only places on the planet where people still gather every winter to take part in this particular antiquated process.

And I joined in on the fun and, and work.

It's a lot of hard work.

He's maybe the most Mainery Mainer that I have ever met.

And he actually was on this very ice as a kid.

I've been connected to the ice house since I was probably eight or nine years old.

The ice house that Ken is talking about is called the Thompson Ice House.