Coolest bar in town

YET another sauna-like day on the Gold Coast? Minus5 Ice Lounge will relieve the heat quicker than you can say frostbite, writes Kara Murphy.

AS we awkwardly use our bulky gloved hands to sip our delicious cocktails, we learn that the ice blocks used to make the lounge come from Canada.

"Are we dressed OK?" I ask Andres, a staff member at Minus5 Ice Lounge's reception area, half expecting him to tell me to return to my room at Saville Circle on Cavill and change into a long-sleeved top.

"Fine," he replies, selecting knee-length, sheepskin-lined, hooded jackets for my husband and I.

Each of us also gets a yellow card (currency for one cocktail) and a pair of booties, plus a pager to share.

"You can spend 30 minutes inside," says Andres. "The pager will go off twice – once when you have five minutes left and once when it's time to leave."

We follow Andres into a small chamber, where he hands us two layers of gloves which, like the jacket, we must wear. From here we enter a second, smaller chamber and go on into the ice lounge itself.

As you do when placed inside an icebox, we shuffle towards the frozen bar and the Absolut vodka bottles, chosen because, unlike beer, it won't freeze in the -5C temperature.

Also clad in the mandatory Minus5 attire, bartender Lyndal takes our drinks order. I choose a Glacier – one of 10 vodka-based libations – made with coconut schnapps and orange, mango and pineapple juices.

Using two hands to receive my New Zealand-made ice glass so it doesn't slip through my stiff fingers and crash to the floor, I ask Lyndal how she can work in such a frigid environment. She explains that staff members rotate duties, only spending an hour in the chilly temps at a time.

Time flies when you're freezing

As we awkwardly use our bulky gloved hands to sip our delicious cocktails, we learn that the ice blocks used to make the lounge come from Canada and the clarity of the ice is a result of both the glacial water used and the freezing process.

Shivering, I walk around inspecting the details. Deer skins line the stools and rather hard-looking lounges. Multi-sided ice balls hang from the ceiling like chandeliers. One small window allows passers-by to peek inside.

There are several sculptures by Auckland-based craftsman Victor Cagayat, who flies here every eight weeks or so to touch up existing sculptures and create new ones. The idea for the four Minus5 ice lounges – there are also bars in Auckland, Queenstown and Sydney – dates back all the way to the end of the 19th century, when New Zealander Buck Rockwell set out to circumnavigate the North Pole.

The adventurer became stuck in a Russian whaling village for the winter and drank lots of vodka to keep warm, a tale that inspired Rockwell's great grandson Craig Ling to open the first Minus5 in Auckland in 2002.

Just when I think I won't be able to brave the lounge for a full 30 minutes, the pager goes off – time flies when you're freezing apparently – leaving just enough time to finish my drink before exiting via the chambers and arriving back at reception, where the air now feels sticky and thick as a sauna.

At this point, some visitors might go elsewhere for 90 minutes, after which time (and for the same fee) they'd be allowed to return to the ice world again. But not me – perhaps due to the cold, the one drink has hit me plenty and I return to my room, where I adjust the temperature up a few degrees.

The writer was a guest of Minus5 and Saville Circle on Cavill.