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)

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!

Photoshoot! Behind the Scenes

We're finally crawling out of our winter hibernation, and starting to book up quickly for the summer. Yay! We can't wait to jump back into snow cone slinging! But for now, it's still a tad chilly out, and The People aren't quite ready for ice (fair enough), so we thought we'd tackle a project before the sun comes out in full force.

A while back, my friend Aisling posted a picture that got our wheels spinning. (Thank you, Kinfolk, for continuing to inspire the nations!) We needed some product photography, and we really wanted to capture the fact that our snow cones are made-from-scratch with all-natural ingredients, so we set out to capture a before-and-after set of photos. The photos aren't quite ready, but I already know they are going to be beautiful!

We got our floral supplies from i fiori on James St N - you need to go check this place out if you haven't been. The owner, Bev, is just the sweetest lady, and she's so passionate about what she does. She has literally made me cry when she talks about the ethos of arranging flowers. She's amazing, and the shop is so beautiful. Add a bit of honeycomb from our friend Brandi, the amazing styling work of Joanna Aitcheson, and incredible photography skills from Aisling (of Oak & Myrrh)...and I'm pretty sure we're going to have something very special.

Photo Credit:

1 & 2 - Meg Makins; 3 - Joanna Aitcheson; 4 & 5 - Oak & Myrrh