Britain took its first tentative steps towards ice enlightenment at the turn of the millennium. In an echo of how ice had reinvigorated American cocktail culture in the early 20th century, leading to the creation of whole categories of drinks – juleps, smashes, cobblers – British marketing teams began to realise abundant ice's potential as a means of altering customers' perceptions about a product, and ice emerged as the central component of several hugely popular campaigns.

The first was Magners, the Irish cider brand that would come to dominate pub beer gardens during the World Cup summer of 2006. The accompanying advertising campaign would be credited by trade publications for almost single-handedly revitalising the ailing cider industry, rehabilitating its public perception as a "cheap intoxicant" and transforming it, as described in these pages, into "the new chardonnay".

The secret – as anyone unable to forget the clink-and-hiss sound effect that concluded Magners's sun-dappled TV spot will attest – was ice, and lots of it. The campaign struck a chord with consumers, and other brands raced to introduce their own ice-led offerings. In 2010, seeking to find an audience for its new crushed ice product, The Ice Co twinned with Bacardi Limited on a series of campaigns featuring brand names such as Bombay Sapphire, Martini and Bacardi on its ice bags, accompanied by a photo of an appealing-looking cocktail heavy on the ice – an education drive intended to teach consumers how to make the perfect cocktail to serve at home.

In 2011, Moet Hennessey attempted to replicate the Magners magic with Moet Ice Imperial, "the first champagne specifically designed to be served over ice". The ice-cubes-in-wine trend would reach its logical conclusion five years later with the popularisation of frose, essentially a rose wine-flavoured Slush Puppy. More recently, the staggering success of the Aperol Spritz has been explained by its Instagrammable bright orange colour and sophisticated aperitivo-culture heritage. But those investigating the trend might also note that unlike one of its ingredients – that millennials' favourite, prosecco – the spritz is always served on the rocks.

All these campaigns raised the public's expectations of drinking outside the home. Pubs that might once have doled out a miserly single cube now had to shovel pint glasses full to the brim; the distinctive sound of ice chinking on glassware or rattling in plastic party cups became the soundtrack of the British summer. Within The Ice Co, they call it "the clink effect": the power of ice to stir a host of associations within the consumer, all of them uplifting and positive.