Ice Ice Baby: The Chill On Ice Lounge

Alright stop, collaborate and lis-ten. (Sorry, couldn’t resist. When you’re talking about a bar that’s made entirely of ice, I defy you to avoid Vanilla Ice being practically the one and only track on your brain’s playlist. It will be a minor triumph if this blog entry isn’t merely a verbatim recital of the song).

So as the title suggests, this week I rugged up and ventured indoors to the Chill On Ice Lounge. Now Jarrod, perhaps I exist in a state of complete oblivion, but until I started doing research for the blog I had NO IDEA that we had one of these in Melbourne.  It’s not a concept unique to our city, these ice bars are all over the world, including Sydney and even Brisbane. The one in Stockholm is probably my favourite–they offer the option of a wedding package that includes flowers and a reindeer skin at the ceremony. Magical! Check out the link and just imagine the childhood trauma you could cause the page boy by whispering “you’re walking on Rudolph” into his ear just as he’s starts his procession down the aisle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDhuUuSTDu0

Anyway, Jarrod you were pretty underwhelmed by the idea of an Ice Lounge and I’ve got to say, the promotional material for Chill On didn’t do much to turn you around, because it does look like some sort of tribute to Walter White’s best batch…

Looks about 99.1% wouldn’t you say?

I took along a partner in crime as usual and this week the blog excursion baton was passed to my gorgeous friend Wendy. This wound up being a virtual ‘face your greatest fear’ rehabilitation exercise for her; she’s fine with heights and confined spaces, and she handles relocation of huntsman spiders like a complete boss, but she can’t bear the idea of being in a situation where she’s cold and can’t get warm.

How much for this experience, you might ask? Well, we went for the $30 standard admission which gives you entry as well as a cocktail once you’re inside. There is also no photography allowed in the bar itself so if you want photos you have to buy the pictures taken from their cameras ($15 a pop).

The temperature inside on the day we went was minus 13 degrees celsius. (Cue scoffing from Every Canadian Ever about that being a ‘balmy spring day and practically T Shirt weather’). They give you a snow cape, gloves and ugg boots on arrival. It’s pretty bloody sexy (if shapeless aqua blue ponchos are your thing, and they should be EVERYONE’S thing–correct?)

So hot right now.

Stepping inside, well it took me back in time to my days working at Safeway supermarkets and having to go into the freezer stockroom out the back. It’s like an opening an industrial door to an oversized cool room, only without the boxes of ice cream to sustain you should you be accidentally locked inside. If it were my business I’d make the entrance a little more mystical/Narnia–you’d open a set of gigantic wardrobe doors and push through other people’s coats to emerge into the wintery landscape.

Sitting in the lap of Hercules. You’d be smiling too.

Everything inside is carved out of ice: the bar, the brickwork, the gigantic thrones which are adorned with animal skins (presumably the pelts of Mr Tumnus?), and the glasses you drink from are ice tumblers. This is just my opinion of course, but there are pros and cons to ice tumblers.

Pros:
* Keeps drink cold. Obviously.
* Valuable drink space not occupied by ice cubes. (No need to specify ‘and no ice’ like you do when you’re ordering at the movies and they fill the damn cup up with 70% ice cubes so you effectively purchase $6 of frozen water)
* No shards needing vacuuming up if you drop your glass, just give it time and it’ll take care of itself by melting away, almost apologetically
* No washing up. (Not that you’d be washing up, you’re at a bar. So it’s probably more like ‘no fear of encountering lipstick that’s not your own on the poorly washed wine glass you’re sipping from.’)

Cons
* Keeps drink cold. Obviously. And you’re already fucking cold and you’d actually quite like something like a nice warm, mulled wine BUT YOU CAN’T EXACTLY HAVE THAT IN AN ICE TUMBLER, CAN YOU NOW? UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE WRINGING IT OUT OF YOUR GLOVES?!!
* Glass is quite thick and sturdy so if you’re on a date, there is no possibility for seductive stroking of the wine glass stem
* Thick gloves required to hold the glass, so your hands look like those of an Ice Trucker and damnit, it’s bad enough that you’ve lost your  wine glass stem move, now your digits look all thick and burly to boot…and, what the hell? is it just your imagination or is your date looking at your neck in a way that suggests he’s searching for a possible adams apple?

** (I should stress at this point Wendy and I were not on a date, just putting this in for anyone who might be considering date location options and doesn’t want to fall into the imaginary mental rabbit hole I’ve painted)

You only stay in there about half an hour and it’s all you really want to be honest, it starts to get a bit cold after that and the novelty factor is done at that point. Anyway Jarrod, that’s probably all there is to tell about the Ice Lounge so the question as always is: The Chill On Ice Lounge, Jarrod, would you go there?

Just Chillin. Mindin’ my business on my ice throne next to two decapitated ice men…