Ice Club

A few months from now, Ling plans to open the Minus 5 Lodge, a more traditional bar adjacent to the ice club. Customers typically spend only half an hour in a frozen bar, but they want to talk about the experience afterward. Why not offer them a drink while they warm back up?

If the operation in Vegas and another in Miami attract enough attention, Ling will have Bayley build two more Minus 5s this year, in New York and Honolulu. Bayley has already started work on his own 10,000-square-foot attraction, Nine Below, in Hensall.

Eventually, though, that market will cool. Bayley plans to be ready. In Hensall, he's working on a machine the size of a shopping cart. It's a prototype, really not much more than an electric motor, a couple of clamps, and a hand crank. Inside are what look like two big, sharpened ice-cream scoopers mounted on arms.

As a tech clamps in a 3-foot-long, 3-inch-thick sheet of ice—skinny side up, flat sides facing the scoopers—Bayley explains what we're looking at: a machine that can make 2½-inch balls of ice. Spheres have a lower surface-to-volume ratio than cubes, so they melt more slowly. Drinks stay cold with less dilution. For people who are serious about their cocktails, ice balls are a major advance.

"Turn it on," Bayley says. With a loud high-pitched whine, the scoopers start to spin. The tech turns the crank like a hurdy-gurdy, and the scooper arms converge on the bottom right corner of the ice sheet and dig in, spraying snow around the room. Just before they meet, the tech stops cranking and cuts the power. He backs the scoopers off, and a lovely translucent sphere emerges, held in place by a fringe of ice. Bayley reaches into the machine with a rubber mallet and taps it loose. The ball falls into his bare hand.

The ice-baller is not ready for widespread use, Bayley explains. Operators have to move the sheet of ice manually to make a new ball, and the final product is too big for some cocktail glasses. Yet beverage suppliers have preordered nearly 40,000 spheres. "We made a mistake and showed it to too many people and created a demand," he says.

Bayley turns away from the machine and holds the ball up to the light to inspect its clarity. Behind him, the tech tries to tap loose a second ball, but it slips out of his glove and shatters on the floor. Bayley doesn't even turn around. "That's all right," he says, chuckling. After all, it's only water.