08/03/2026
🍧Mrs. Sandra has been the owner of Sandra’s Sno-Ball Shop for over 40 years. All those years, she has used Sno-Wizard products. Sno- Wizard is the original!
I thought it would be interesting to share a bit about the history of the Sno-Ball. 🍧
Sno-Wizard - A History:
The shadows of the Great Depression clung to America in 1936, and a New Orleans neighborhood grocer was struggling to keep his business afloat. Noticing a gathering of customers at a nearby snow cone business, George J Ortolano, son of Sicilian immigrants, was inspired to add this inexpensive treat to his grocery store to generate additional income.
George, however, was resolved to create a machine that would produce a fine, fluffy, shaven snow similar to that made with blocks of ice and a hand ice shaver. His efforts were successful, and his subsequent invention of a simple, but ingenious machine transformed blocks of ice used in the household icebox into mounds of delicate snow-like flakes, unlike the crunchy ice crystals from that snow cone machine. He dubbed his invention, the Sno Wizard Sno-Ball machine because he thought it was like magic the way it turned blocks of ice into fine, fluffy snow. Temporarily devoting his mechanical skills to the creation of ships during the second world war, he acquainted other family members with the machine who introduced the product into their grocery stores. The tasty and unique concoction attracted a slow but steady stream of customers. Abandoning the grocery business soon thereafter to devote his full energies to that fledgling enterprise, Ortolano set about improving his early wooden machines incorporating knowledge gained through his shipyard experience. He developed new models, built of galvanized metal, and later of stainless steel. His newly redesigned machine warranted a monetized distinct name, so the two words were combined, and the letter W was removed. The birth of the New Orleans Sno-Ball evolved from his newly donned Sno-Wizard Sno-Ball machine.
Assisting George in promoting his innovative enterprise was his wife,Josie. She experimented using the assortment of extracts and flavorings in their grocery store to create new and unusual flavors for his “magic Sno.” Combining them with cream, “Mrs. O” soon became to be known as the “Queen of Cream” and the mother of famous New Orleans best-sellers, including Nectar Cream, Ice Cream, and Chocolate Cream Sno-Balls.
*This is an excerpt from a Sno-Wizard information packet.*
