KD (Kold Draft) Industries manufactures high volume ice-cube machines, which Gourmet Magazine calls "the Gold Standard in ice." The company's reputation appears to face no risk of melting; its machines produce daily volumes of 110 to 1,229 pounds of cubed ice that is cleaner than the water going into it. 

Eminent mixologists echo Gourmet's assessment, including Dale de Groff, renowned Cocktail King of Rockefeller Center's Rainbow Room, who says of Kold Draft, "There is only one type of ice I'll tolerate." The company also puts a chill in the sideline buckets and locker-room ice baths of the University of Miami Hurricanes. For cooling a hot team off the field, the Hurricanes credited Kold Draft with an assist for the team's 34-game winning streak in 2003.

Perfecting the technology of ice-making since 1920, Kold Draft brings innovation to a niche market. KDI invented circulating-ice-water draft beer in 1936, introduced bottled-beverage coolers, ice-cube trays, and, in 1955, invented upside-down ice cube creation. The technique flushes water into the open bottoms of a horizontal array of very cold copper lined cubes, where water freezes first along the roof and four walls. Heavier impurities flush away with gravity and let a crystal of cold delight form for the high ball.

KDI has introduced thermal banks and water recovery systems for environmental efficiency in its machines after working with Penn State's Applied Energy Research Center at the Erie Campus. A lot of people will raise a toast for that. In early 2011, the company announced a partnership with a Texas in-store bagging machine firm in which Kold-Draft manufacturers a new system that includes an ice maker, automatic plastic bagging system and cooler for self-service. Kold-Draft estimates it has helped create more than 100 new jobs because of the new product, which can seal as many as 360 10-pound bags per day.