Has anyone tried any flavoring that is suited for naturists, I mean, people who don't like artificial flavoring but prefer natural flavors?

Have you tried using some kind of natural fruit concentrate (or fruits) for flavoring a shave ice? Do people like it? Do you charge more for it? How do you make it?

Have you used those concentrated fruit juices that come frozen, using the frozen ice with juice directly inside the machine? Does this work? Is it bad for the machine? Are there good results?

Thank you very much,
Felix.

I haven't tried anything like that yet, but this winter I'm going to experiment with different methods of flavoring as an alternative for the customer. We have lots of customers that just order plain ice.

The first thing I want to try is Gatorade or some other type of sports drink. Gatorade seems to be a great seller at hot events as an alternative to soda or pain ol' water so maybe I can combine that with our snow cones. I know that pre-made Gatorade would be too thin, but I was thinking of mixing powdered Gatorade a little "thicker" (less water to powder ratio) and see how that works.

You know, I have not spoken with Carl yet about this, so I do not know how much research he has put into Natural Flavors. As for myself, I have had no experience with natural flavors. For the health conscience, we have created the sweet thickener that is made with Splenda. This has been absolutelty huge. It is actually very tasty. I have had people say that they even like the flavors better with the sweet thickener than they do with sugar.

The nice thing about sweet thickener is that is it just that... thick. It has the same texture as sugar water, so it goes on like a syrup. The problem with much of your natural substance items is that it is too thin. In the end, it is nothing like a shaved ice, so it often loses its appeal.

Keep me informed on your findings, and I will do the same. It will be interesting to speak with Carl and see what research he has done in this area.

Thank you,

- Aaron

I have also not made any research in this area. Only there are some ideas of using natural juice concentrates, with less water than what you need to make juice, but we have not tested it yet.

I tried some time ago a flavoring that was not thick (I think it was some kind of juice concentrate with a little water) and the shaved ice was different. You are right that it must be thick.

Thank you very much.

Although I wouldn't do this, I found it interesting....

http://aog.2y.net/forums/index.php?s=91f239e3f19c7575c947572176bf8474&showtopic=1782&st=0

We get a lot of requests for natural flavors because they are huge with the Mexican community here in Southern Ca. so we would love to be able to offer them, but we're not willing to chop up pineapples, coconuts, etc. to get them. We would be very interested in natural flavor options from Snowie.

We do make some versions of it with local flavors from concentrates (you would use to make punches.) Play around with the mix ratio, but we usually use 1:1 ratio when doing this.

Hope this helps.