Icenine Drinks brings an innovative new cocktail experience to the market

Icenine, a new cocktail experience. Photo: James Tye

With an innovative production process in place, alumni startup Icenine Drinks is seeking seed investment to scale up its business.

A disruptive way of enjoying spirits is being brought to the market by Icenine Drinks, a startup founded by Thomas Gossner and Max Medhurst, two graduates of the Innovation Design Engineering Master’s degree run jointly by Imperial and the Royal College of Art. Thanks to the design and entrepreneurship skills they acquired during the programme, and the support of the Enterprise Lab, they are now ready to scale-up production and bring this novel drinking experience to people across London and beyond.

By leveraging their experience in both engineering and design, Thomas and Max have created something fun, exciting and unique. Dr James Groves Head of Investment Services, Imperial

“While Icenine Drinks might not be the type of company you’d normally associate with Imperial, its actually a fantastic example of the creative thinking our founders are famous for,” says Dr James Groves, Head of Investment Services at the university. “By leveraging their experience in both engineering and design, Thomas and Max have created something fun, exciting and unique. Innovation can take many forms at Imperial – even spherical!” 

Mr Gossner agrees that Icenine Drinks is unsual for an Imperial startup. “We are working with spirits, but we are approaching it with a very scientific mindset," he says. "We also have a very responsible approach, which focuses on creating a shared experience rather encouraging people to drink to excess.”

But what is this new experience? It takes just nine seconds for the ice shell of an Icenine to melt in the mouth and the liquid spirit inside to hit the tongue. “With a margarita Icenine, you first taste the frozen lime shell as it releases a perfect mix of refreshing sweetness and sourness as it melts,” says Mr Gossner, the company’s chief executive. “Then suddenly there is a hit of tequila as it bursts in your mouth.” 

Engineering the experience

Getting that experience just right has taken a lot longer than nine seconds, with everything from the size and shape of the Icenine to the thickness of its shell and the texture of the ice carefully calibrated. 

“It’s important that there is not too much coldness in your mouth, otherwise it would become unpleasant,” Mr Gossner goes on. “It has to have the right balance of spirit filling to non-alcoholic frozen shell.” 

Even the shape has been carefully considered. “In the end, we settled on a sphere, because you can move it right and left in your mouth,” he says. “People do that quite intuitively – and it’s playful – whereas the feeling is not as pleasant with other shapes, such as a cube.” 

There has also been significant engineering innovation behind the scenes, in order to develop a production process that can be scaled up to meet demand. With a patent application filed to protect this process, Icenine Drinks is looking for its next round of investment to bring its social experience to the wider market. 

Cool innovation

Icenine Drinks was founded in 2022, but the idea dates back to Mr Gossner’s undergraduate studies in industrial design at the University of Applied Sciences Munich, where he was looking for disruptive use cases of 3D printing in the hospitality industry. 

Printing an ice cube with a liquid centre proved to be too challenging for the technology, but the idea stayed with him. “I forgot about the 3D printer, and I just wanted to show that the product worked. I wanted to build the minimal viable product of this idea,” he recalls. “So I started working with silicone moulds, and eventually produced a small number of ice cubes filled with spirits, that people really enjoyed.” 

After graduating from the Master’s programme at Imperial, the two friends decided to turn the idea into a startup. The first step was to think about how to make the Icenines on a larger scale. “The prototype was made by hand,” explains Mr Medhurst, Icenine’s chief technology officer. “It was very fiddly, and you had to have the right temperature fingers to even get it to work.” 

We’ve built a demonstrator line that produce around 100 Icenines a day, and the same approach can be easily scaled-up to a much larger production line. Max Medhurst Icenine Drinks

In the food and drink industry this kind of problem is often solved by adapting an existing process, but they could find nothing that was up to the task. So, they had to start from scratch, spending much of the past year developing an innovative, scalable production process. 

“We’ve built out a demonstrator line that uses our process to produce around 100 Icenines a day,” says Mr Medhurst. “And the same approach can be easily scaled-up to a much larger production line.” 

This development has changed production from a problem into an asset. “With a patent in place, we’ve now turned this challenge to our advantage, and it becomes a unique selling point,” says Mr Gossner. “We have a new product, tapping into a new market, with no competition and we own the technology.”

Actively seeking investment

After raising £150,000 last year to support this development work, Icenine Drinks is now seeking seed investment to design and build a full-scale production line, allowing it to launch in venues in London. “Currently we are doing events, and we ran a few trials with venues across London, to really understand the market,” says Mr Gossner. “With the expanded production capacities our aim is to permanently deliver to venues in London, and then expand throughout the UK.”  

We have a new product, tapping into a new market, with no competition and we own the technology. Thomas Gossner Icenine Drinks

The flavour combinations have been chosen to mirror some of the most popular cocktails and mixed drinks in the UK market: passion fruit martini, piña colada, mojito, cosmopolitan, and margarita.

“Because the experience is so new and so different, having something that you can relate to really helps people get into it,” Mr Gossner explains. “But in the future, we can really go crazy with the flavours. Layering this taste experience is something where you can really go all-out.” 

Retail sales will come later, but Mr Gossner can also see the company forming partnerships, for example with individual brands. The more agile drinks manufacturers already see the potential. “We’ve already seen interest from smaller brands, and people reaching out to put their drinks into Icenines,” says Mr Medhurst. 

Prepared for entrepreneurship

The Master’s programme they both followed at Imperial has proved good preparation for the startup experience. “In Innovation Design Engineering you learn resourcefulness and persistence, so you just push through the challenges you might be facing,” says Mr Gossner. “You believe that you have the tools and skills to make this happen, or, if not, that you know where you can acquire them.”

The need to regularly present projects to fellow students and staff also proved beneficial. “You really need to hone and craft your pitch, and that helped us when it came to speaking to investors, and in all the other conversations we have with venues or other stakeholders in the industry,” says Mr Medhurst.

Icenine Drinks also had the support of the Enterprise Lab, with the Experts in Residence programme proving particularly helpful. “We were introduced to so many fantastic experts, from intellectual property support to marketing and business development,” Mr Gossner says.

One expert was even able to put them in contact with a consultant with many years experience of regulation and compliance in the drinks industry, who helped the founders navigate the complex web of licenses they need to market and sell their product. “For this contact alone, the Enterprise Lab was invaluable.”

The Imperial Investment Portal

Icenine Drinks is one of a number of Imperial startups seeking investment. The university helps investors learn about these through the Imperial Investment Portal, which has overview information and pitch decks from each company.