I may order the ZENY or some other brand of this style, just to see how well it works. There are home versions, and pro versions, of ice shavers. The home versions do not get as fine a grind as the pro ones. I have a feeling this one would be fine using home or store ice cubes. If you use blocks (like if you were to use Solo cups to make ice) it would be finer shave. While small cubes a rougher crush.
I would be wary of that Costzon, just because it looks too much like the Waring. Which was a lousy, terrible, machine. I think they are basically the same machine. Almost identical size and weight, and when I bought the Waring it was about the same price as the Costzon is.
Traditionally, in tiki bars most crushed ice in drinks is actually from blending the drink with ice for five seconds in a blender. This breaks it up into small pieces. There are only a few types of drinks that really need pre-crushed ice. Swizzles and juleps. One of my areas of specialization in bar consulting is tiki, and in most of the old recipes the instructions say blend for five seconds. If you look at Beachbum Berry’s books you will see this for the majority of cocktails. Tiki drinks are high volume drinks and needed to not be fussy in the majority, so that you can take your time on the ones that are complex to build.
Otherwise, I really like the Lewis bag. Sure you need a solid counter or floor to whack the bag on, but it lets you go all primeval and let out your emotions, cracking the ice. In a few minutes I can make enough to fill a big bowl, and make tons of juleps and swizzles. And with the bag and mallet I can control exactly how rough or fine the crush is. Large or small pebble ice, down to total snow consistency. And the water is absorbed by the bag, so you get relatively dry ice, not wet like many machines make.
