ASPEN, Colo.—Patrons at the outdoor bar at the base of Aspen Highlands should have no trouble keeping their drinks chilled. The bar is made of ice.
The ice bar at Willow Creek Bistro, part of the Ritz-Carlton Club at Highlands, debuted with the Dec. 12 opening of the slopes at Highlands. A second bar is in the offing in the courtyard at the Hotel Jerome in downtown Aspen.
“It’s killer,” said Basalt resident Kent Taylor, assessing Willow Creek’s frozen watering hole one Sunday afternoon.
“It’s a really cool bar,” agreed Robbie Soskin of Minneapolis.
The carved ice features a mountain scene etched into the front panels, which are illuminated with colored lights. The smooth, translucent surface of the bar is, well, ice cold.
With the exceptionally frigid weather Aspen has experienced for part of this winter, the bar seems especially fitting.
“We’re hoping to get a solid two months out of it,” said Jami Flatt, executive chef at Willow Creek Bistro. “It’s something new. It seems to make sense in a mountain setting.”
The bistro hired outside help to construct its ice bar.
The Hotel Jerome staff plans to engineer and build its bar in-house, according to Kevin Siegrist, grand events manager. A sheet of ice in the courtyard will be cut to create the building blocks of the bar.
“We had talked about doing it last year, just because it’s such a great space,” he said. Sunshine graces the hotel courtyard long after it has disappeared from gathering spots at the base of Aspen Mountain, Siegrist noted.
Once it’s built, the Jerome ice bar will be serving libations on nice days, when people tend to congregate outside, he said.
