The Ice King, Frederick Tudor, built a massive ice trade from scratch by solving physical logistics and, more importantly, creating demand where none existed—then his own industry was made obsolete by refrigeration.
Sam tells the story of Frederick Tudor, the Ice King, who figured out how to harvest and ship ice from Boston to South America before refrigeration existed, pioneered insulation methods, and created demand by giving free ice to bartenders for cold drinks—ultimately building an industry that refrigeration later made obsolete. ✦ AI generated
Sam · My First Million · 2026-07-23 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 45:06
“Have you ever heard about the Ice King? Frederick Tudor.”
Frederick Tudor, this guy is known as the Ice King. This guy basically he lives in the north northeast of the US. So he lives near like Boston or something where it gets cold and Boston gets cold in the winter. There's tons of ice and he realizes he learns that in South America they never have snow and they never had ice. And so he has this brilliant entrepreneurial idea. He's like I'm going to sell ice to the South Americans. And this is pre-refrigeration, pre the freezer being invented. ... He uses wool to wrap that he realizes like oh I can cover it with sawdust and sawdust will preserve this ice for like a little longer. ... He goes to the bartenders and he says, 'Look, I'm going to chip you off a little ice here. This is free for you, but you need to start serving rum cold in a chilled drink.' And so they get the bartenders free ice. They start giving people ice out of cold drinks. And guess what? Once you've had cold rum, you never want to go back to that warm piss again. And so the demand starts to get built. ... This guy builds this amazing trade. He pioneers new methods of refrigeration and freezing in order to transport the ice and ultimately puts himself out of business because people realized, oh wait, we can just freeze water and make ice ourselves.
verbatim transcript · starts at 45:06
44:46>> Look kids, the story of Moby Dick is real. These guys floated across America on a raft for 90 days before they were discovered. Okay, if they could do that, we can get to McDonald's without crying. [laughter] >> Can I tell you a very inspiring uh entrepreneurial story just to leave on a high note? >> Have you ever heard about the Ice King? Frederick Tutor. You know this guy?
45:07>> Not personally. [laughter] >> All right. So Frederick Tutor, so this guy is known as the Ice King. This guy basically he lives in the north uh north northeast of uh of the US. So he lives near like Boston or something where it gets cold and um you know Boston gets cold in the winter. There's tons of ice and he realizes he learns that in South America they never have snow and they
45:30never had ice. And so he has this brilliant entrepreneurial idea. He's like I'm going to sell ice to the South Americans. And this is pre-refrigeration pre the freezer being invented. Right? So he's basically goes out wherever there's like a frozen lake and he would get blocks of ice and he would figure out how to transport it on boats to South America and go try to sell this
45:53stuff and he was like I will I'm not selling ice. selling winter and people are like how are you going to even transmelting and he's like so he starts getting in the lab and he he uses wool to wrap that he realizes like oh I can cover it with sawdust and sawdust will preserve this ice for like a little longer and he would start the thing with
46:11like 200 lb of ice and by the end he would have like you know 70 lb left but he would still sell that 70 lb and then when he got there people didn't understand what to do with the ice he would sell the ice and then people would come back complaining being like it melted dude he's like what are you talking about that's what it does it's
46:26It's ice. It's hot outside. Like they didn't get it. And he's like, "Okay, I just got on this boat for like a month and brought them ice and they didn't want it. I have to get them to want it. I have to build the desire in their mind." And so he goes and he figures out what's the key product? What's my hero hero product here? He's like, "I need to
46:42sell cold drinks on a hot day." So he goes to the bartenders and he says, "Look, I'm going to chip you off a little ice here. This is free for you, but you need to start serving rum cold in a chilled chilled drink." And so they he gets the bartenders free ice. They start giving people ice out of, you know, cold drinks. And guess what? Once you've had cold cold rum, you never want
47:02to go back to that warm piss again. And so the demand starts to get built. People start to want ice. And this guy builds this amazing trade. He um pioneers new methods of refrigeration and freezing in order to transport the ice and ultimately puts himself out of business because people realized, oh wait, we can just freeze water and make ice ourselves. And then the ice straight kind of collapsed. But Frederick Tutor