The coolest NYE party in Orlando, and possibly the entire nation is here! 50 tons of ice, and MORE! New sculptures, an amazing Penguin Pizz luge, Meet "Chip" the new bear.
Eat, Drink, Dance, be Merry.
Go to www. Icebarorlando.com for the rest of the story and join us for a COOL party.
We have the decorations, the lights, the Hottest DJ, the coolest drinks, the Iciest glasses, and the best champagne. Can't find a more luxurious lounge, or hotter Ice Princesses to help ring in the new year.
Icebar Orlando wants to thank all our customers who have made this year a delight for our staff. We truly appreciate your business and your feedback. Please feel free to tell us what we are doing right, and what we are doing wrong! Since we are a new business, and new to the hospitality business we need input.
Our staff, most of them college students working to finance their way, are great, our best asset, so I wish to give them special recognition for their efforts. We applaud the Ice Princesses who greet our customers with a smile, the bartenders who mix with charm and knowledge, the bar backs who keep everything in order and our Sales and Management staff who keep our customers coming in the door. May your holiday be happy, your new year stupendous.
ps: this is a suggestion for our new look! Whatcha think?
DECEMBER 12, 2009 CHILL OUT OFFICE PARTY to benefit Cell Phones for Soldiers
Announcing the COOLEST Office party! Icebar Orlando has been designated as a drop off point for the Cell phones for Soldiers Holiday drive. We are offering small offices and individuals a FREE entry into our ICEBAR with a chilly drink in exchange for a used cellphone. These phones are turned into prepaid calling cards sent to soldiers who cannot make it home for the holidays to call and talk to their families. This is a great cause and we are proud to be part of the giving. Icebar Orlando invites all small offices that cannot hire a great hall or party place to join other small offices on December 12th to celebrate in style. Bring a cellphone and 10 guests and get our Freeze for Free package, one free for every paid entry.
Support the Military who are not with their families this holiday season. Drop off cellphones any day, or come on December 12th and celebrate with us.
Food, live music, fun and frolic watch our fire breathing bartenders do their juggling act. Enjoy our dance floor and see the brand new ice sculptures.
Help us help the soldiers and get great discounts at ICEBAR!!!
Aaron Costic of International Ice Carving fame, finished a new bear for us yesterday. This is what we have been waiting for!!! It is a 6'5" standing Polar Bear with one paw up, and already has instant success with Icebar Guests. We have moved and updated all the sculptures and added a new shelf for displaying some of the new an amazing vodkas we are featuring. The bear was made from 8 blocks of ice, frozen together starting out at 2,400 pounds! After the carving, I think he probably weighs close to a ton. This is a BIG FELLA.
Aaron started by stacking the blocks and we will get the video up so you can see how it was done. Really fun to watch him work. We also had a film crew from the International Drive Travel website come and take some movie shots. That should be great publicity for us and for Aaron. I am considering going to take a class in carving from Aaron's studio in Cleveland, but have to wait until it is not so darn cold!!!
I am a Florida native, and really don't like much snow... so why am I operating an icebar? Good question! It's FUN, people SMILE when they see it, and it makes me Feel GOOD! Besides, I get to taste test all the new recipes, like the one below.
Along with Diamond Standard Vodka, we have just tasted the 4 Orange Vodka made from Florida Oranges! This is, I believe, the first vodka distilled from Oranges. After the oranges are squeezed for juice the skins and pulp are made into molasses which is distilled to make the great tasting and quite aromatic vodka. We are trying a new drink with our ice glass that has a sugar rim! Then the orange vodka and a splash of fresh limeaid for an "Florida Orange Freeze". YUM YUM.
Here's the bear -and we are designing another bar to be installed in the future! Let us know what you like, and any suggestions.
Oh, Yeah, it's Florida Classic Weekend November 19 - 21. Icebar has secured some great hosts and sponsors to make every night a great memory. Thursday, the Motown Mixer with all alumni invited, sponsored by Zeta Phi Beta and Phi Beta Sigma will have a bus running from the Rosen Center to the Icebar starting at 9:00. Friday, the Motown Mash up with DJ David Z and DJ Cize spinning Dance tunes all night. Come and hear your favorite tunes. Saturday! MOTOWN CLASSIC PARTY - Sponsored by Hennessy Cognac - FREE bottle with every VIP purchase. This is IT! Best party in town, this is the place to show off your wheels and your heels. Free parking, Free entry for ladies before 11, 2-4-1 Premium for gents, specials all night.
We are now featuring Diamond Vodka in the icebar and in our VIP packages. If you have not tasted this marvelous brew that is filtered through DeBeers diamonds you must come. We have absolutely the best prices around, and they are a sponsor of Icebar. It is GREAT STUFF! We have a special martini made with white grape juice that will chill you out!
“Our Diamond Filtered patented process is an industry first.We utilize over six hundred cut diamonds of up to one carat in size to purify our vodka.Our innovative process creates vodka with the silkiest and most subtle of palettes and is simply the most exquisite mass market vodka available anywhere.Our filtration system took over three years to perfect.Its yield is 750 carats of liquid elegance since each and every drop has been individually Kissed by Diamonds.” http://diamondbeverages.com/
BOOOO! Icebar Orlando has some tricks and treats for this Halloween. The trick is to pick which night you want to party. Friday - Asian/18+ night hosted by Deepvision Entertainment. With $100 and up costume awards and frightning good drinks it is a hopping scene for the younger crowd to party hearty. Saturday, its our annual Freaky Freeze Bash. All ladies in costume get in free and all costumed guests get free premium drink..... party till dawn with $100 bottle specials and be the VIP to watch. Bottles for best costume, dance and prance till the wee hours.
October 1, 2008 - Newsflash, Icebar Orlando opens on time! Wow, it was close, but we did it, became the first permanent bar of ice in the United States, even the entire Continent! My partners have said that if we were to try and pick a worse time to open we probably couldn't have hit it better. The economy crashed, the market tanked, unemployment is at all time high, the "r" word became a reality. Travel stopped, vacations were canceled, meetings abandoned, trade shows and conventions at record lows, and the hotels, a wasteland of empty beds.
Icebar Orlando??? We ROCKED! Well, ok, some of it was just plain rocky, but like Rocky, we learned, we leaned, we listened and we Live our Dream. Our thanks to the employees that have helped us make this the "Coolest bar in the USA" and to those who came to see and shared the fun with their friends, our Expedition Guests, You are the Coolest! If you missed it, we are ONE YEAR OLD TODAY!!!!
So, look out for our TERRIBLE TWO'S! We're on a roll and we're going to keep our cool..
Icebar Orlando has been practicing our Flair. We have had Devin from Rockstar Bartenders show us some cool tricks, and we have made up a few of our own. A couple of weeks ago Devin filmed another episode of his bar-tending lessons at Icebar and we wanted to share it with you. He is amazing, has a great smile and I can swear that no liquor comes out when he slings those bottles.
I have almost mastered one small trick, and we are all working on doing what is called "working flair" That means you do it while still pouring drinks for a crowd without slowing down. We have also been practicing good bar-tending skills.
For me, never having been behind a bar until we owned one, it has been a lot of fun learning how to craft drinks. My most recent was a very Classic Martini.
I can truly say I have never had a classic martini, and I LOVE them! Wow, what a difference the skill to pour the right way makes. Here's the recipe, and the technique to do it at home.
Properly chill a stemmed martini glass (that means fill it with ice and water and let it get very cold) then pour out the water.
Put 1/2 ounce of dry vermouth in the glass and swirl it around to coat the inside of the glass, dump it out.
Fill a shaker 1/2 full of crushed ice and add 3-4 ounces of Bombay Sapphire Gin. (I use a pretty large martini glass) Stir for one minute to dilute some of the ice and make the gin very cold. Don't shake!
Strain gin into glass. Take a lemon peel and twist it over the gin to allow some of the oil to fall down on top of the gin. Throw peel away.
Add two olives on a pick. Just two, don't be greedy!!!!
That's it!. The perfume of the lemon oil, the tiny bite of the vermouth and the chill of the Bombay - Awesome!
Note: If you use vodka, it is a gibson, not a martini. The only martini is made with gin!
Now watch Devin make a cosmo - You can do this at home, too. We'll do more classic cocktails this week. Icebar is making a new menu for those of us who don't drink drinks just to be blind drunk - we are reviving the Civilized Cocktail Hour at Icebar. Come join us, especially on Sunday for cool jazz as we "wine" down the week.
THIS JUST IN FROM OUR ADOPTED PENGUIN whose name is Ice Ice Baby:
Dear Icebar Orlando
Ice Ice Baby and our other adopted penguins are now back in the colony after their long winter migration to Brazil and back. They are in excellent condition after months of rest and recreation, which is just as well, because there is lots of work for them to do before egg-laying begins next month.
Penguins do not usually stay with their partners during the winter migration, so they need to meet up again back at the colony before mating and egg-laying can take place. The males arrived in the colony a few days before the females, which is usual. There are always many more male penguins than female penguins, so the males cannot take the risk of loosing their female to another male by arriving late. Female penguins are not tolerant of being stood up, so male penguins must be punctual.
The winter storms cause so much damage to the old nests that they are hardly recognisable in the Spring. Much of the soil gets eroded away by heavy rain, and considerable vegetation growth occurs during the winter due to the availability of much needed moisture around the plant roots. As a result, the nests need to be completely restored and cleared of mud and debris, before they are in a fit state to hold the eggs.
Both partners share the work of repairing the nests, and these activities, along with courtship displays and the preening of each other's feathers, renew the pair-bonds that keep the couple together throughout the season, and often for life. Magellanic penguins are sometimes known as Jackass penguins because of their donkey like call (see attached video clip).
Adult penguins live to 25 or 30 years of age, and have no real predators, so very few penguins fail to return to the colony each year. Orcas (killer whales) do sometimes eat penguins, but there are very few Orcas in the waters around our colonies. Adult penguins are also very skilled at avoiding predators, and most penguins caught by Orcas are the pre-breeding youngsters who have not yet refined their survival skills.
This is one of the reasons that penguins do not begin breeding until they reach
4 or 5 years of age. Penguins need 4 years of practice catching fish and avoiding predators before they are ready to become reliable parents like Ice Ice Baby.
There are sealions in the vicinity of our colonies, but sealions do not really feed on penguins, despite what you may have seen on TV. Some other species of seals do kill penguins for food, such as Leopard Seals, but they only live around Antarctica so are not a threat to Ice Ice Baby.
A very small number of adult male sealions which are unable to secure females do sometimes attack and kill penguins, but they rarely eat the penguin. This behaviour seems to be the result of aggression by frustrated males that have no females, something similar to young lads at a disco, who having been unsuccessful at chatting up a girl, look for someone with whom to pick a fight, or for something to vandalise.
Around Isla Magdalena in Chile we sometimes see this, because there is a sealion colony on nearby Isla Marta, but out of a penguin population of around 140,000 penguins, perhaps a dozen or so penguins are killed each year. So the law of averages dictate that Ice Ice Baby will fall victim to a sealion about once every 10,000 years.
Once the nests are fully repaired, the penguins must wait for the eggs growing inside to finish developing. Egg-laying in Argentina takes place during mid to late October, with egg-laying in Chile and the Falklands taking place about two weeks later, in early November.
As soon as egg-laying has taken place, we will take a photo of Ice Ice Baby sitting on the nest. We cannot take photos before egg-laying has taken place, because the penguins can all too easily abandon the nest if they are disturbed prior to egg-laying. Once egg-laying has taken place however, the penguins will not abandon the eggs except under extreme circumstances, such as the nest becoming submerged by water as a result of heavy rain.
It is for this reason that we must take the photographs after egg-laying has taken place, the timing of which is in the hands of Ice Ice Baby. I will write to you again when egg-laying and photographing have taken place.
In the meantime, you might like to know that scientists have uncovered fossils from the oldest penguin ever found. Discovered in New Zealand and called Waimanu, this penguin is 62 million years old, just 3 million years after the dinosaurs.
Waimanu has a head and beak very similar to a cormorant, and the skeleton strongly suggests that penguins evolved from a common ancestor of cormorants, petrels and penguins. This shows that birds must have been evolving long before the extinction of the dinosaurs, and therefore co-existed with dinosaurs, contrary to previous beliefs.
This just in from our traveling partner. Words by Richard Barna, great friend and intrepid traveler, and photos by Wylie Plummer, partner extrordinairre. The Ice Queen is dripping with envy at their great views of all the bears and wildlife in Alaska, and Russia.
The only humans on the Russia's Wrangel Island of for 30 years have been 4 scientists and 3 rangers studying the bear, walrus, arctic foxes and birds unique to the island. With all these scientists on board our ship, Vladimir Putin’s permission and exceptionally good weather, we set off in our zodiac boats on a bear photo hunt. Dr. Nitika Ovsanikov is the island’s chief scientist and world renowned polar bear expert, having lived with his family on Wrangel Island for many years. His English is excellent except for an endearingly off kilter pronunciation of his favorite subject – “beers”. We were certainly impressed with all the "beers", birds and walruses on Wrangel Island. Watching them in their native habitats helped us understand their primordial struggle for daily existence. As the winter ice recedes each spring, the bears can choose to float north with the ice, or stay on the ice free land. Seems to work out for them either way. Having seen our fill of the land based bears, we are headed north to hunt for bears at the edge of the Arctic Ice Shelf. Stay Tuned.
Hello Chillers - Icebar Orlando has it's first wedding booked in what will be (for the day)the Ice Chapel! We are very excited and will document the wedding for your reading pleasure as it unfolds. A very cool way to get married, and a Hot reception in the Fire Lounge will follow. Thanks to DeShay, our Sales Coordinator and Wedding Planner Extraordinaire for putting together a fabulous wedding package..
Fire and Ice
Weddings and Receptions
Feel like an Ice Princess for a day and his Ice Queen for the rest of your life.
Imagine your special day frozen in time.
Ceremony inside ICEBAR “Coolest Wedding Ever”
(Up to 75 people including Bride, Groom and Officiant can attend the ceremony)
ICEBAR Orlando is the largest permanent bar made of ice in the USA. Conveniently located to Interstate 4, Florida’s Turnpike and SR 528 (Beachline), ICEBAR Orlando features a chance to step into a magical world of ice designed and created by world class ice carvers using over 50 tons of ice. The interior walls, bars, tables, seating, fire place, and even the drink glasses are made entirely from ice.
Reception in the FIRE Lounge
(Up to 475 Guests)
You and your guests will enjoy the ultra-hip FIRE LOUNGE,
providing an inviting climate controlled, themed atmosphere
that can be customized with your dreams in mind.
DeShay can help you with amazing decorations, flowers, frozen treats,and wonderful foods to enhance the day. Call her at 407-426-7555. We also do a Luxury Proposal Package that includes a mink coat,white limo,and personalized ice pillow to present the "ice" ring to your prospective bride..... Give her 50 tons of ice, not just one!
Aaron Costic, the amazing and talented Ice Carving wizard of Icebar Orlando rides the bear.
Holding the bear down is Bill Whidden of Ice Magic, wall builder and ice glass producer.
Nineteen years ago, Aaron Costic, picked up a chainsaw and sculpted his first block of ice. This was enough to catch his heart and dreams. Ice has been in his veins ever since. You can see Aaron's website at www.elegantice.com. He does the most fantastic creations and was exciting to work with. Aaron is in the process of updating our Ice bar with a new theme, "Animals of the Cold". In the first Icebar creation, we gave Aaron the designs and he translated them into our current stunning display.
I particularly liked his interpretation of our dream, he did a series of three intricate carvings, the first portrayed the seeds of icebar growing and developing. The second carving shows the idea fully developed right before being "born" and the final shows the release and fully developed experience exploding into reality. This is truly art. Here is another example of the fantastic and intricate carvings that Aaron crafts from the chilly blocks of ice. We are going to have some fun with animals and will keep you posted on the schedule. Might offer some views of the carving. If you are interested, please leave a note below and we'll send an invite.
This month we are designing the new sculptures and theme for Icebar Orlando. Aaron Costic, our amazing sculptor will be available the second week of September to do 4 days of carving and installation. We are tentatively working on the ANIMALS OF THE COLD as the new theme. We have plans for a replacement polar bear, standing up this time, and some Eskimo's with no faces so you can put yours in for a photo, like this: There are also Narwhales, Penguins, Arctic Fox and Hare, Snowy Owl, Seals of all kinds, and the leopard is my personal favorite (see post below), there are also orca whales, albatross and a lot of other kinds of creatures. What is your favorite? Let us know what you think (other than you think I draw funny!)
We are also offering our liquor partners the opportunity to participate in branding of our sculptures and the new bar. I created a power point presentation, and in doing the research am totally in awe of how many people atually visit our website, see us on television and read about us in blogs and articles. We have, this month, two new videos, one on nbc's Travelscoot and another on an English travel site. We also taped a segment for a new website being developed called The Information Network. We will be taping for ION tv a program called Southern Bike Nights which will feature us in a bike-friendly look at Orlando. We continue to get weekly requests for photos and information and interviews.
The result?? BUSINESS IS GOOD!!!!
For that, we thank our guests, and our great Icebar team.
Icebar Orlando is proud to be a partner of Jade Events, who produce a monthly party on the 3rd Saturday of each month. . They do a "grown up" party and have a great following. In July, Ernest Wilson's birthday, and also birthdays of DJ Saxwell and Sophia Jones were cause for a great celebration. We have had White Parties, Black Parties, Anniversary Soire's and great and exciting events each month The month of August the team is giving back to the community in the greatest party for back to school ever! It will be on Friday, AUGUST 15th.
Lined up for the evening are celebrities The Honorable Tiffany Moore-Russel, and Eryka Washington. The guest of honor is Ozzie Smith who is leaving to attend Harvard University. Ozzie is the creator of Orlando Professionals and we want to send him off in style.
The back to school drive asks all guests to bring a new school supply to assist the teachers and students of Central Florida. Everyone bringing supplies will receive deep discounts on entry and drinks.
Doors open at 9 pm, come, celebrate Central Florida education and bring supplies to keep our children at the head of the class.
I went South as far as I could go, it was cool, well actually it was unbelievably cold. This is my story.
In my life travel has been a passion. I have now been officially to 137 countries, and not just to change planes. To experience the culture, to enjoy the differences, and mostly to taste the food and come to know the people. There are some good places I could stay forever, some places with no soul that were challenging just to visit, and some places that lit my imagination like a rocket.
Antarctica! The South Pole! A pure white covering of ice over the very beginning of the earth. The core of Gondwanaland. Frozen mountains, Katabatic winds that blow up to 150 miles per hour, a sky of endless sun and endless dark, and the South Pole space station, in search of the origin of the Universe. Imagine yourself in the midst, all alone in the world's most brutal place. It is the highest, coldest, stormiest, driest, windiest place on the earth, and far away from any civilized life. What would it be like, and what would you be like in it? Would you survive? Would you cope? Would it change your life forever?
In this world of instant gratification, immediate global communication, streaming video of every facet of life there seems not much left to explore, to find, to discover. TV shows fly around the world on a racing adventure, anyone can raft the Amazon, we've been to the moon, to caverns far below the surface, I guess we have been there, done that everywhere.
Or, wait, have we? There is a huge difference between looking at a picture and actually standing in the spot. I think that only in the physical experience can we truly know where we are, and where we are going.
When you put your hand into the water in iceberg alley you can feel what the seals and penguins feel when they swim. You can have your guide yell "Get your hand back in the boat" at the top of his lungs, and wonder why until a leopard seal at least 10 feet long pops up to see where his snack went. PHEW! In a 12' zodiac inflatable boat you are on the water and part of the wildlife. The small motor is a huge attraction for penguins who love to swim and jump in the wash of the propeller, and the leopard seals follow to find their next of the eight penguins a day they eat. As you sit very still on the cold and rocky shore two juvenile penguins come to check you out, nudging each other forward until one thinks that jumping into your lap is a good idea, and you are not sure that he isn't after your eyes - so you shoo him away, gently, and he hops off to tell his parent. You watch with horror as a bird large enough to be a nightmare snatches a baby penguin for its supper. You also watch as the penguins snuggle their young and cuddle their mates.
Reality is not on TV, get out there and see it for yourselves. More on Antarctica tomorrow, then the North Pole!
Icebar Orlando announces ICE BALL 2010.
