Sweet Ice 2014!

Hey guys! As you may have read in our last post, Sweet Ice has some exciting changes coming this year. The biggest change is that we're moving away from street service and festivals, and spending more time in the world of weddings. We've loved our time at Art Crawl, Supercrawl, and so many other amazing local festivals. We are so thankful for all the times you've lined up at our booth, and enjoyed our snow cones - thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Getting ready for Art Crawl!

Over the years, however, we've become more and more excited about the thing that has always set Sweet Ice apart - our all-natural, made from scratch syrup. Our syrup is something we create very slowly, in small batches, with a lot of care, and we love to be able to chat with people about the syrup, the fresh ingredients, and 'slow food' in general. The fast pace of festivals just doesn't allow for that. We've come to find that the creativity and relaxed vibe at weddings really works for Sweet Ice. What that means, however, is you won't be able to find us in public very much this year, except for a few occasions! (read on...)

Supercrawl was always the BEST. Hamilton's Christmas!

We always had our cooler, if we wanted to take a little break. :)

There are three important things that you, our beloved snow cone fans, need to know:

1) Feel free to let your friends know about snow cones at weddings. It's just the cutest idea, and so refreshing, delicious, and unique. Without street service, we'll need our pals to help us get the word out there, so we appreciate you sharing the love! If anyone you know is interested in booking, they can email 'info@sweeticesnowcones.ca' for more info and prices.

2) There's an announcement! Sweet Ice Soda is back!

We want people to continue enjoying our syrups, and they are amazing as Italian sodas! So, beginning this weekend and next, we're rolling our syrups into a few of our favourite Hamilton coffee shops. We started this last summer, and are eternally grateful to the Cannon for giving us a cozy home to work out all of our kinks! This summer, we're expanding, and will be in four local shops! Spanning from east to west, you'll be able to enjoy Sweet Ice Soda at The Cannon, Cafe Oranje, Cake & Loaf, and Detour.

Check them out here:

The Cannon

(beginning this Friday, for Sew Hungry)

179 Ottawa St N, Hamilton

Cafe Oranje

(beginning this Saturday)

312 King St E, Hamilton

Cake & Loaf

(beginning next week; stay tuned for an announcement on Facebook or Twitter)

321 Dundurn St S, Hamilton

Detour

(beginning this Saturday) 

41 King St W, Dundas

3) We'll be having pop-up shops throughout the summer at these locations, so people can still enjoy a Sweet Ice snow cone! Keep your eyes on our Facebook and Twitter pages, to get announcements on where we'll be set up. There won't be much notice - basically we'll just see if it's hot enough for a snow cone, announce the location, and then show up to sell our cute treats!

Looking forward to another season of Sweet Ice, where things are always exciting and new. Thanks for following along!

(photos via Oak & Myrrh Photography, @iamjohnston, Cafe Oranje, and Jesse Senko)

Dreaming of Summer...

Hello dear friends! Even though we're currently under a few feet of snow, Spring and Summer are coming (we promise!), and we're starting to dream about warm weather and wedding season over here! As you may have noticed, our little snow cone company has evolved a bit over the years. We originally focused on Art Crawls, moved into festivals, then we started doing weddings, and even began offering our syrups in soda form at a local coffee shop. This year, we'll be a bit different yet again! 

We've decided to focus our energies on some of the things we find most enjoyable about Sweet Ice, and one of those things is celebrating with brides and grooms on their big day. Our focus for 2014 will be weddings, and it seems to be the right direction for us as we're already filling up our weekends!

If you're reading this now, and you'd like to book with us this year, we encourage you to send over an email right away, as we'll be hitting up some amazing wedding shows in the next few months, and have no doubt that our snow cone calendar will fill up quickly. Send over a short 'hello', and we can fill you in on all the details about having Sweet Ice at your wedding!

And if you're not getting married this year, but still want to be able to taste your favourite snow cone flavours, you might not see us out on the streets as much this year. So make sure you share this info, and pass it along to your soon-to-be-wed friends, so you can partake in some all-natural icy goodness at their wedding!

Thanks for all the support over the years, friends. It's amazing to be part of a city like Hamilton, where our customers and fans actually shape our business, and make us who we are! You guys are peaches (and honey).

(Photo cred: White Photographie, Sandy Tam Photography, and Oak & Myrrh Photography)

Delicious, Refreshing News!

You wouldn't believe how often people ask if we have a store somewhere. Like...I guess they think it would be a really great idea to have a whole shop that just sells snow cones. Hmm. Well, anyways, so far our delicious all-natural syrups have only ever been available at our booth, in the form of a snow cone, but we have big news!

*Drum rollllllll*

That's right! You can now get Sweet Ice Soda, all summer long, at The Cannon! We're so excited to provide our fresh-fruit, made-from-scratch syrups to our favorite coffeeshop, and Anne and Cindy are so excited to add some refreshing new items to their menu! Starting THIS WEEKEND you can pop by 179 Ottawa St North and try an icy cool Sweet Ice Soda!

And of course, you can still get the Sweet Ice Snow Cones that you're craving. We'll be set up at the Art Crawl tonight, outside Mulberry Street Coffee House on James Street North. Art Crawl starts around 7, and goes...as late as you want it to!

See you there (and probably at The Cannon too, since that's where we are more often than not), and stay cool, Hamilton!

(Photos: Oak & Myrrh Photography)

Because Water Is Blue...

So, we're a snow cone business. Everyone who comes to our stand and orders from us knows we are a snow cone business. BUT, there is something that gets lost in translation every once in a while, and that is the fact that we make all our syrups from scratch, with fruit that is as local and organic as possible.

Really, that's the thing that makes Sweet Ice unique! Most people have had a snow cone or two in their time, but chances are, you've gotten it from a carnival vendor who pumps it out of a plastic jug he ordered on the internet. One of our favorite examples of Sweet Ice being misunderstood is when we ask a customer which flavor they'd like, and they say:

Friendly Customer, we don't hold this against you. We are products of our culture! We are slaves to mass-produced, artificial, corn-syrup ridden alternatives! But we're going to clear this up, once and for all. "Blue" is a color, not a flavor. Blue is not in season right now. Blue, my friends, should not be consumed.

Until now.

This weekend is Tall Ships Festival at the Hamilton Waterfront. The Tall Ships Festival is super cool  - the fleet of 1812 ships arrive at Pier 8 tomorrow, and the weekend is filled with nautical, old-timey activities, events and music...

It's going to be a very fun weekend, and we thought it deserved its own commemorative flavor! So...ships sail...they sail on water...water is blue...how about a blue flavor! It's what The People want!

So, here it is, our all-natural BLUE snow cone!

We'll be offering this 'Blueberry Lemonade' beauty along with a bunch of other delicious, all-natural flavors all weekend at Pier 8 (near Sarcoa). Snow cones are $3, and will be available Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from noon until about 10pm.

You can check out info about the Tall Ships craft fair here, and the music schedule here. Also, more info about the actual TALL SHIPS is here - that is the main event, afterall! This ship is the Sørlandet, it comes all the way from Norway, and it's the oldest full-rigged ship in the world that is still in operation!

This ship, along with the others, will be arriving under the Burlington Skyway Bridge, and pulling into Hamilton Harbour around 2pm on Friday, and there will be a cannon firing ceremony. It's called the Parade of Sails - FUN! Hope to see you there, mates!

All Aboard!

Okay, so we went to the best event on Friday night. We had been gloating about it all week, so maybe you've heard about how we got to serve spiked snow cones on a moving train. Is that even allowed? Apparently it is! And it was awesome. Put on by Wilfred Laurier University Student Publications, Steel Rail Sessions has been happening for a few years now, and is described as Nuit Blanche on a train. Basically, every car contains some kind of art installation, or dance party, or bar, or SOMETHING, and then the train would stop every once in a while with interesting shows, acts, and food outside for the guests to enjoy. It was great.

The train was beautiful and old, and had these giant windows with a perfect country breeze. Our car was pretty full most of the time, which was hilarious, because every time the train would slow down or go over bumps, we'd all have to try to stay standing and not fall all over each other. It was chaotic, but probably one of the most fun events we've done.

Neal was a great train conductor.

We didn't make that sign, but we did approve it, hehe.

One of the coolest things about this event was hearing people talk about Kitchener, and how much they love it there. Apparently there are some really amazing cultural things bubbling up there in the arts and music scenes - we had no idea! People talked about it they way that we talk about Hamilton, and that was really encouraging. It's just a good thing for people to stand together on a train and drink spiked snow cones, and talk about the cities they love. Steel Rails, thanks for choo-choo-choooosing us. xo

(Photo #1: kdub.ca)

Back in the Swing of Things!

The warm weather is here, and Sweet Ice is back at the Art Crawl! We weren't sure if we were going to make it back, as our regular spot at the Tivoli is no longer an option, but we found a cute little home on the Mulberry patio! We'll be there during July and August Art Crawl as well, so make sure you stop by. :)

We made sure to savor the Art Crawl over the Fall and Winter, because now that it's snow cone season, we don't get to see too much! I think this month's crawl was one of the busiest and most jam-packed that I've ever seen it. On every corner and in every store front, there was something magical happening! Very cool, Hamilton.

Our bud CJ was SO ready for a snow cone.

Emma had never had a Sweet Ice snow cone and was very excited.

Our new home!

We did make sure to get away from our booth to stop by and see our friends, Joel and the Jukes, playing at the Lister Block. If you're ever looking for an amazing wedding/party band, these guys are so good.

We also popped out to make some special deliveries to some of our friends along the street. Hey Hollie and Jane, HERE ARE SOME SNOW CONES FOR YOU.

All in all, it was a delightful night! Thanks for being so great, Hamilton.

Soccer Fun Day!

This is the ONLY photo we had time for. Pardon the pixels...

We served snow cones at a Soccer Fun Day to 800 CHILDREN. They were sweaty and yelling and they were wanting snow cones at 9:00 in the morning. Breakfast cones. The words "all-natural" and "organic" meant nothing to them - they asked for "blue" and we told them we didn't have blue but they could have pink or red or orange. 8-year-old children requested espresso cones that were meant for their parents, but we served it to them anyways, because why not. They were adorable and awesome and cool, and it was a really fun day.

We barely had time for one photo, but we did get a great quote: