It’s winter time and though we don’t get snow or ice where I live, I know it can be very, very cold in some parts of the world. And while a lot of people become depressed during wintertime, a few enterprising ones have a lot of fun with it – maybe by joining friends at a bar in the evenings to warm up, like in an ice bar.

A great example of a really cool ice bar is the one located in the Ice Hotel in Jukkäsjarvi, Sweden. Everything in the bar is made of crystal clear ice, from the walls, chairs and tables, down to the drinking glasses. The contract bistro furniture here is renewable and all-natural: ice from the Torne River. The bar is sponsored by Absolut vodka; hence it’s moniker Absolut Ice Bar. Ice furniture is crafted by artisans and while everything looks absolutely dreamy, I don’t know how comfortable it would be to sit on an ice bar stool or an ice sofa.

The Absolut Ice Bar concept has taken off in other parts of the world. Branches exist in London, Milan, Copenhagen, Tokyo, and Shanghai. It seems at least several of these other locations are open year-round, with re-designs taking place twice every year. Also, the ice they use is imported from Sweden. Guests pay an entrance fee, which entitles them to a designer thermal cape to keep them warm inside.

Modern café chairs or bar chairs made of ice wouldn’t do as well in warmer climates (duh!) but for owners of such establishments who want to give their guests something of that ice-cold ambiance, furniture that looks like ice – in addition to really, really good air conditioning – just might do the trick. There are lots of chairs and tables that, with a slight stretch of the imagination, would probably seem as if they had been sculpted from the Torne River’s ice. And they’d last longer too.