Igloos & Ice Bars
Baby, it’s cold inside. Ice is not only a key ingredient of cocktail culture, but your frosty drink can also be matched with a frigid atmosphere by visiting an igloo or ice bar. Even when it’s over 100 degrees outside, you’ll have to put on a hat and heavy coat to enjoy this unique barroom experience.
During the winter months, no frozen bar in the nation is more impressive than the massive igloo complex at the Sunday River ski resort, in Maine. Each year, a team of specialists arrives from Europe to construct a traditional Alpeniglu, a huge, domed structure the size of a medieval castle, made entirely out of snow. The first of its kind in this country, “The Iglu” has multiple entrances, long cave-like corridors and arched sitting areas, complete with fur-covered seating and tables, colorful lights and artistic snow carvings.
In the central dome is a bar carved of ice, serving cocktails, Champagne and beer, plus mocktails. It is easily reached on skis or snowboards during daytime hours (10 a.m.-until a half-hour before chairlifts shut down). Admission is free and food trucks park outside for the hungry. Even non-skiers can visit from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. when an enclosed sno-cat shuttles guests to the igloo.
Sunday River’s parent company Boyne Resorts is in the permit process of opening at least two more Iglus this winter, at Michigan’s Boyne Mountain and Montana’s Big Sky, the second-largest ski resort in the country.
Instead of mirroring the outdoor climate inside, the ice bars of Las Vegas and Orlando offer respite from the heat of the outdoors. They are basically bars inside giant freezers, with walls, seats and even shot glasses carved from ice. Minus 5 Ice Bar has three locations in Sin City, totaling 90 tons of ice, with music and LED light shows, in the Linq Promenade, Venetian and Mandalay Bay. Icebar Orlando is hand carved from 70 tons of frozen water. All locations provide glove loaners and winter coats. ICEBAR Orlando maintains the conceit of a winter wonderland with “shot skis”: old skis with multiple shot glasses mounted on them for group toasts.
