One Cone – You can call it shave ice … but you’re verging on “sno-cone.”
Two Cones – You’re passing. You’re not giving it enough thoughtful effort, or you don’t really care about quality and just want to make a buck. In school you would be the student that teachers say has potential, but doesn’t apply him or herself.
Three Cones – You’re doing well. You’re making a quality shave ice that can proudly be called shave ice. There’s good effort, great secret syrup recipes, and consistency to your ice preparation.
Four Cones – You make us cry with happiness. Your consistently excellent ice, creative and thoroughly tasty syrups are the essence of shave ice.
Five Cones – You walk on water. Your shave ice is stunning in its consistency, superior flavor, and ice preparation. Your intangibles also work: terrific service with aloha; good location; parking; accessibility for the disabled, and cool t-shirts.
Hello,
I am a shaved ice vendor in Portland, OR. I am trying to find the best flavor concentrates that I can order from another company. I know you don’t give too many cones for places that don’t make their own syrup, but I think some places are actually using flavor concentrates from a bigger company. I contacted Aoki and they said they use different companies and mix and match and maybe add some other things.
I am wondering if you have any ideas about who the best of the bigger concentrate companies are. Hawaiian Snow (www.hawaiiansnowshaveice.com) is one that has a distribution center in Hawaii and claims on their website to be affiliated with Aoki, Matsumoto, and some other shops (though maybe just selling them machines?). RealHawaiianIce.com in So. Cal sells concentrates/syrups (which I have used and are just ok) as does 1-800-shaved-ice.com; http://www.hypothermias.com; http://www.snowie.com; snoshack.com and a few others.
If you have any ideas or opinions on this topic please let me know. I’m glad someone started a site like yours!
Thanks,
Patrick Miles
Block-Head Shave Ice
541-543-6070
By: Patrick Miles on May 7, 2010
at 8:46 am
Hi Patrick,
Thanks for your comments regarding our not-often-updated blog. It
seems you know more about the ins-and-outs of commercial syrups than
we do. Our discussions with employees of the various shops has been
pretty casual, and we haven’t delved into where they get their stuff.
I do think the better shops must mix and flavor many of their best
syrups though.
We think the best shave ice on Oahu are: 1) Shimazu, 2) Kokonuts, and
3) Mountain Magic in Waikele – not in any particular order because
they’re all very good. We definitely haven’t hit all the shops (there
are a lot). What we’ve learned is that each shave ice is very much
dependent on the shaver/shaper.
Good luck with your business.
By: shaveicesnobs on May 12, 2010
at 11:19 am