Our tumbled Chilling Stones are made from our fieldstone remainders, chiseled by hand, and tumbled and washed in a week long cycle.
Beautiful stone is relative to the scale of the specific piece or shape of what is intended. So, for our 1.5″ diameter, 1/2″ thick chillers, are are looking for vibrant colors, interesting patterns, and hard stones.
These stones are gather from farms all over New England. Through our stonecrafting process, we set aside the remnants that are even more beautiful, because of how interesting they are at this size.
The tumbling process in a series of steps that takes about one week. The results are smooth, colorful, and ready for your freezer. We recommend washing prior to use in your drink. Also great as small cairn stacks, or a three part trivet.
Chilling Stones are made to be stored in the freezer and added to your glass to chill your drink without diluting it. Connoisseurs of whiskey, bourbon, and scotch are especially fond of our Chilling Stones, but fun even for kids.
THE FARM–TO–TABLE STORY
About 8,000 years ago, icy glaciers pushed boulders into the soil of America’s Northeast. As a result, a fresh crop of rocks ‘grow’ each spring when the winter’s freeze-thaw cycles force buried stones upward, a process called granular convection.
In the 1890s, before the railroads opened up rock-free farmlands in other parts of the United States, farmers removing stones from their fields piled them into what eventually became 215,000 miles of stonewalls, a distance greater than from the earth to the moon!
These stonewalls became the folklore of poets like Robert Frost, and the landscape of the Northeast United States. Because clearing rocks is never complete, American Stonecraft partners with working farms to sustainably harvest their fresh rocks and transform them into functional heirlooms. Not only does this endeavor share geology that has never been seen before, but it helps support working farms, preserving open space and protecting the stonewalls that are so iconic to this region.
Like many of us, the founder of American Stonecraft, Gerald Croteau, fell in love with these archaeological stone ruins as a youth. However, he became an economist and founded American Stonecraft in his late 20s after seeing the inside of a fieldstone for the first time. He was amazed at what he had overlooked for so long, and realized that there was a sustainable supply of these rocks that farmers could share at their farmstands. Diamond tools (being a relatively modern invention) revealed amazing colors, patterns, and geologies in the humble New England farm-gathered fieldstone that he wanted to help share with others!
Gerald rolled up his sleeves, spent several years as an independent craftsman touring at local arts and crafts shows, and taught himself how to make a number of fascinating products. We are now a small team of artisans, and each piece is signed by its maker(s), and produced under Gerald’s direct supervision.