Baltimore's hottest new bar is also its coldest.
Inside the new Minus5 Igloo, the temperature hovers around 23 degrees Fahrenheit (negative five degrees Celsius), to keep the walls, bar and glasses from melting. Nearly everything inside the small rectangular trailer, which opened for business in Power Plant Live's plaza two weeks ago, is made of ice — save for the floor and ceiling.
"We're the Coca-Cola of ice bars," said manager Rupert King. "We're the best. We're the trend-setters, with the best technology."
Baltimore is the second stop for the mobile Minus5, which, from the outside, resembles a big, blue trailer. It set up shop last year at Whistler Mountain during the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, before traveling to Baltimore for the summer and fall. The plan is to keep Minus5 in Power Plant Live's plaza until the end of football season. Depending on how well it's received, Minus5's parent company could build a permanent ice bar there, King said. The company already has a dedicated ice lounge in Las Vegas.
"It's going to depend on how well it's received here," he said. "It's a really good marketing tool."
The novelty is what gets people in the door, King said. Since he and his staff have to sell customers on the experience, they can easily rattle off talking points about the bar. All told, the ice inside Minus5 weighs about 16 tons, King said. The bar itself is about six inches thick, and a life-sized statue of feared linebacker Ray Lewis, which weighs about a ton, stands along one wall. The statue and other furniture, such as a bench and a couple of pedestals, were carved by Peter Slavin, a renowned ice sculptor.
To enter Minus5, customers pay an $18 fee, which includes a cocktail. The bar, which provides long winter coats and white cotton gloves, has a two-drink maximum.
When Justin Jones, a 26-year-old who lives in Laurel, stepped inside Minus5 with his friends, he immediately whipped out his cell phone and started snapping photos.
"It's like stuff you see in the movies," Jones said. "It's wild. My feet are sticking to the floor. It's like that 'A Christmas Story' movie."
Two refrigeration units are constantly running to keep Minus5's temperature under control, King said. Just how much electricity does the bar devour?
"A lot," he said.
The shot and cocktail glasses, which are also made of ice, are manufactured in New Zealand and shipped to the U.S., King said. At least once a day, the Minus5 crew skims the walls with lit blowtorches to keep the ice from getting glazed and foggy with perspiration. Though the exact process is a company secret, Minus5 uses dehumidifiers and other equipment to keep customers' behinds from sticking to the benches and their lips from adhering to the glasses, King said.
"It's a weird experience, having that real cold glass against your lips," King said. "People that go in for their second drink, if they're drinking out of the same spot, there will be a little smiley face from where their lip melts in."
Minus5's drink menu has five cocktails, all made with Sobieski, a Polish vodka, and different combinations of juices. Water, soda, beer and wine are off limits because of the low temperature. A glass of beer would freeze in 15 minutes, King said. The bar imposed a two-drink maximum because it forces a quick turnover, and because drinking at low temperatures is similar to drinking at high altitudes. The human body absorbs alcohol much more slowly when it's cold, which means that when Minus5 patrons leave the bar and begin to warm up, most of the liquor hits their bloodstreams at once.
"You come outside and it's like, 'bam,'" said Minus5 employee Brittany McGhee. "It's kind of like a triple effect. We have to watch it, though, because sometimes people come out and they're like, 'Aaah, where am I?'"
Minus5 is off to a good start, King said — more than 150 people patronized the bar the first Friday after it fully opened. After Nicole Westerman shared a couple of drinks inside Minus5 with her friend Dave Jeffery, she said she'd go back again, given the chance.
"I think they should make it a permanent thing," she said. "My only worry is that during the winter, nobody is going to want to come into the cold from the cold. But not everybody can say they drank at an ice bar."
Minus5, by the numbers
•The eight-inch-thick walls are built with ice bricks, which weigh as much as 300 pounds.
•The $18 entry fee includes one of five specialty cocktails, as well as a rental coat and white cotton gloves. An extra drink costs $10.
•Bartenders take 25- to 40-minute shifts to keep from getting too cold.
•At most, only 25 customers are allowed inside at any given time.
•Minus5 has about 16 tons of ice, including a life-size, one-ton statue of Ray Lewis.