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While technology has created a bed fan to keep us cool under the sheets and Han Solo ice cubes to give your drinks a little more "Star Wars" flavor, inventors haven't found a way to keep your chilled martini from eventually succumbing to room temperature.

In order to combat the inevitable melting that comes with global warming and baseboard heating, you'll need to take a page from Dr. Freeze's playbook and start hanging out in a subzero lair, or better yet, an ice bar.



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Ice Bars

    Ice Bar at Restaurant Reykjavik in Iceland. Guests get a coat before they enter the bar into 6c where they serve cocktails and Icelandic Brennivín.

    restaurantreykjavik.is

    Girls enjoy cocktail drinks on the ice made bar counter at a press preview of the Absolut Icebar in Tokyo. Asia's first ice bar made from blocks of ice cut from Sweden's Torne river will open here 17 February with an entrance fee of 3,500 yen (30 USD) per person with one drink and winter clothes.

    Yoshikazu Tsuno, AFP / Getty Images

    A bartender makes the cocktails at a new-opened Absolut Icebar in Shanghai, 22 June 2007. China's largest city Shanghai may be sweltering under muggy summer heat, but Sweden's Icehotel may just have the coolest bar in town for patrons to chill out in. The operator shipped 50 tonnes of ice blocks to Shanghai from Sweden's Torne River, a method used for the Stockholm bar that helps maintains the room at minus five degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit).

    Liu Jin, AFP / Getty Images

    An entertainer dressed as an Ice Queen performs for the public at a new ice attraction, called Ice Space, next to Tower Bridge in London. The attraction houses ice sculptures, an ice bar, an ice rink and will also feature performance art. The ice attraction has been made with over 2,000 blocks of ice, weighing over 200 tons in total.

    Carl De Souza, AFP / Getty Images

    Holly Sevenson enjoys a cocktail at minus 12 degrees in Melbourne's first ice bar called the Chill On, located in the city centre. Over thirty tonnes of ice has been used in fitting out the bar with ice sculptures, chairs and a couch alone that weighs in at four tonnes. Patron pay 30 dollars (22.5 US dollars) for a half hour visit where they received a free vodka or cocktail in special glasses made of ice as they sit on seats covered with kangaroo skins.

    WIlliam West, AFP / Getty Images

    Japanese young girls try to chisel blocks of ice into glassess at a studio of the Alpha Resort Tomamu's "Ice Dome Village" in Shimukappu, northern Japan. The village which consits of six domes, including glass studio, bar and chapel which are constructed from ice, opened in December and is expected to last until the end of March.

    Toru Yamanaka, AFP / Getty Images

    A woman enjoys cocktails at "Icebar Sub-Zero" in Seoul, South Korea. The entrance fee for South Korea's first 'Ice Bar' is 15USD and includes a drink, customers can also borrow coats upon entry. Everything in the bar including the counter, walls, tables, glasses and chairs are made from blocks of ice.

    Chung Sung-Jun, Getty Images

    Barman Brendon Smith poors a vodka in the frozen interior of the Minus 5 Ice Bar on Princes Wharf. Customers are provided with insulated clothing and only allowed a 30-minute stay inside Minus 5, which is made entirely of ice, right down to the drinking glasses.

    Dean Treml, AFP / Getty Images

    An ice bar is pictured in Rovaniemi. Rovaniemi's Christmas season is in full swing, teeming mainly with families with children eager to meet Santa and his elves. In 2007, almost one million tourists visited Finnish Lapland above the Arctic Circle, 360,000 of whom were foreigners, mainly from Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Norway and Russia, according to the regional council of Lapland.

    Oliver Morin, AFP / Getty Images

    Bar staff hand out drinks in the Minus 5 Ice Bar at Circular Quay in Sydney, Australia. Minus 5 is Australia's first Ice Bar, built entirely out of ice and preserved at arctic temperatures. The human threshold for the body to endure this environment is for a maximum of 30 minutes and visitors are requested to wear overcoats, gloves and hats at all times.

    Chris McGrath, Getty Images



Now if you can't make it to Reykjavik, Paris or London, which all have ice-lined boites to keep your bubbly below freezing, you may want to consider building your own. Constructing your own ice bar won't be easy, though. After chatting with Hordor Sigurjonsson about Kaffi Reykjavik, here are some details to keep in mind:

Fashion a metal-walled room lined with at least eight inches of insulation. Kaffi Reykjavik's owners got the idea for an ice bar after visiting Finland's ice hotel. To make their dream a reality, it was necessary to carve out an entirely new room in their restaurant. In many ways, the result is like a walk-in freezer that requires fans blowing cold air at all times. Don't expect to whisper sweet nothings; be prepared to shout.

Find a supply of old ice. Kaffi Reykjavik imports the materials for their walls from reserves in southern Iceland where the water has been frozen for years and is much harder than your fridge's cubes.

Hire ice sculptors. Kaffi Reykjavik has their chefs winnow down large blocks into bricks between one and two feet wide. Make sure your sculptor or contractor has a good sense of bricklaying so the finished walls don't tumble onto anyone. For extra atmosphere, require them to carve out seats, a sofa and an actual bar. Cover your new furniture with animal pelts, or at least grandma's crochet so no one's pants get wet.

Invent an ice-themed drink. If you're going to have your own ice bar, might as well kitsch it up with a specialty drink. Kaffi Reykjavik calls theirs Blue Moon, which includes vodka, cointreau and blue curaçao. (Extra points if you can make your ice drink blue.)

Buy some thick slickers. Everyone will say they want to hang out in your ice bar, but once they've been inside a minus 9 Celsius room for five minutes, they'll reconsider. Having hip parkas and jackets on hand (as Kaffi Reykjavik does) helps.

Be prepared to redecorate at least once a year. In the three years Kaffi Reykjavik's ice bar has been open, the ice walls have had to be rebuilt every nine to 12 months, depending on how many patrons pass through -- all that body heat, after all. (Sigurjonsson estimates they got over 60,000 people last year.)