Sno Wizard is magical. It's like Disney Land on Magazine Street. But better.

Very few things can rescue the desperate, sweltering citizens of New Orleans from this heat. I’m new to New Orleans, it’s my first summer. I’m fishing for some heat reprieve.

Air conditioning? Not just regular AC. I’m talking standing directly over the vent (if you’re lucky) or directly facing a window unit.

Cold showers? But you can only take so many before your skin starts to suffer and you spend a fortune on shampoo.

Swimming? Even if you have a pool, it likely feels like warm bath water. Nothing worse than swimming in water that’s warm to the touch. They call that a hot tub, and you should sit. Sit. Not swim.

I figured nothing would make me forget about this heat. And then I was formally introduced to Sno Wizard by a born-and-raised New Orleanian. Sno Wizard isn’t far enough from my apartment in Uptown to keep me from going on a regular basis. It’s my new-found, cash-only, fountain of youth. And the $10 we had between us made for a fine sampling of Sno Wizard’s best magic tricks.

Thanks to Sno Wizard's website, you can peruse this list of flavors before leaving the AC and heading Uptown.

We started with a small chocolate cream sno ball with condensed milk. And then we stepped it up to two, yes, two large snothees.

Snothee?

The sad look inside a half-eaten nectar cream snothee. This glass is half empty. My tummy was half full.

The snothee is a magical creation that is a sno ball plus syrup plus soft serve ice cream blended all together. It’s more than a sno ball but less than ice cream. The first straw pull from my nectar cream snothee WITH condensed milk was one of the finest moments I’ve had since I moved here. Sort of like my first ham po-boy from Parkway or my first spring afternoon spent at the bird rockery in Audubon Park. This snothee was a life changer.

The second straw pull was from a cake batter cream snothee. This is a new flavor at Sno Wizard, written on the menu in Sharpie. My escort and I traded back and forth until both snothees were gone.

Let’s just say they don’t call it a Wizard for nothing.

After that, I had to rest for a while, directly in front of the air conditioner. But the next day I went back for another.

Sno Wizard
4001 Magazine
New Orleans, LA 70115
(504) 899-8758