Beaucoup NOLA Juice, and recommended home ice shaving machines, in The New York Times (1 Viewer)

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We are all passionate snoball fans in our family, and Hansen's occupies a particularly significant place in our shared history. We are unfamiliar with Beaucoup, on Freret. Is it as good as the Times article makes it sound?

Putting the Fresh in Refreshment
(The Snow Cone Grows Up)
The New York Times | June 15, 2010 | By JULIA MOSKIN

FIVE THOUSAND pounds of ice: as heavy as a young elephant, or five wading pools filled to the brim. Dylan Williams, the owner of Beaucoup Nola Juice in New Orleans, hauled it all in a refrigerated truck from New Orleans to Manchester, Tenn., last week, to supply his snow cone stand at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. He also had a pile of watermelons, jugs of mango and pineapple juice, and two SnoWizards, stainless-steel contraptions that produce the silky, fluffy ice shavings required for a true Louisiana “snoball.” A snoball is to a snow cone as Warren Beatty is to Shirley MacLaine: closely related, but prettier, smoother and infinitely cooler. “In New Orleans, you can get killed if you call it a snow cone,” Mr. Williams said.

Mr. Williams, who decorated his stand at Bonnaroo with Mardi Gras beads, uses lightly sweetened fresh juices and eschews colorings on his snowballs, both radical breaks with New Orleans tradition. Like other local treats such as the po’ boy, the New Orleans snoball has qualities unique to that city. Mysterious flavors like “nectar,” “orchid” and “ice cream” predominate, and each flavor can be made in a cream version, so it is possible to order, say, a “cream of ice cream” snowball at institutions like Hansen’s Sno-Bliz, where the same ice-shaving machine has been in use since the 1930s, or at Plum Street Snoball, where the owners make their own condensed milk for drizzling on top.

“There’s always going to be a kid who gives his mom a hard time because I don’t have purple,” Mr. Williams said. “But people who care how things taste seem to like mine better.”

The Times article also has positive words for a couple of very cheap, "low-tech" ice shaving machines: the Back to Basics (also called the Hawaiice) and the Hamilton Beach Snowman. Anyone tried either?

More at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/dining/16ice.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

 

[bozoka45]

They have good snoballs. I was at Bonnaroo but didn't see where they were setup.

 

[antipop]

do not ever get a "sno ball" in Raliegh, NC

terrible....

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

tried beaucop last year and have wanted to try again
i was a underwhelmed - the juice did not have enough flavor/uumph to stand up to the ice
i think if they thicken it up (made a syrup) it would be awesome