A Sugar Rush in January truly calls for … snow cones

There are two locations of the boutique snow-cone shop Tropical Sno in Kansas City, and they’re both owned by local entrepreneurs Seth Golay (a Tropical Sno dealer-relationship manager and actor — he’s currently understudying two roles in Shear Madness at the New Theatre Restaurant) and his partner, Jason Kralicek.

Both snow-cone emporiums are closed for the winter season, but for fans craving a chance to gnaw on intensely flavored shaved ice in January, Golay and Kralicek will be serving full-sized portions of their products — as in “small,” but not a tiny sample portion — at Sugar Rush, the annual Pitch sweets and dessert expo held this year on Thursday, January 29. The event combines sweets, coffee and liquor at the Promise Wedding & Event Space, at 1814 Oak. 

Sugar Rush is the first event of this type that Golay and Kralicek have participated in, so they decided not to serve miniature versions of their shaved ice cones but smaller full-sized confections.

“We’re going to bring about two dozen flavors, but the Sugar Rush patrons can create all kinds of custom flavors by picking three of those flavors to make something new. For example, we can use our peach flavor, our cinnamon flavor and a dash of vanilla flavor to make a peach cobbler flavor. By mixing birthday-cake flavor with strawberry, we get something that tastes pretty close to strawberry shortcake,” Golay says.

Golay and Kralicek will also be serving the icy treats with their color-changing spoons.

“The spoons are temperature-sensitive,” Golay says. “So when you plunge our pink spoon into the ice, it turns dark purple.”

Sugar Rush, an evening of coffee, confections and conviviality, is a ticketed event with advance tickets ($12). Featured vendors will bring a luscious display of delicious treats to sample. For tickets, click here or call 816-561-6061.