Ice cubes are amazing little sponges for smells. Think about it: your freezer is a closed, cold room where you store everything from frozen pizza to leftover garlic butter. Strong odors—like garlic, onion, or fish—love to travel through the air and get trapped in the porous surface of ice.
Ever notice how your ice cube tray smells funny after you’ve stored it next to some stinky leftovers? That’s not your imagination. The plastic or silicone of the tray itself can soak up odors like a sponge on a coffee table. Then, when you freeze water in that tray, the water picks up those ghostly flavors.
