Product Description

Rival Deluxe Ice Shaver with Bonus

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #141582 in Kitchen & Housewares
• Brand: Rival
• Model: 326470
• Dimensions: 8.10" h x 8.20" w x 11.90" l, 3.70 pounds

Features

• Fast, fluffy ice for snow cones, fruit smoothies, slushes or cocktails
• Powerful motor and stable suction-cup feet
• Molded plastic, white with translucent blue hopper and lid
• Includes bonus snow cone molder and 2 flavor packets (blue-raspberry and grape)
• Measures 8 by 11 inches

Amazon.com Review
Shaved ice was a prized delicacy for medieval royalty, and it still seems luxurious and festive. The Rival Deluxe Ice Shaver, a small counter top appliance, makes a large bowl of shaved ice from a double handful of cubes. Its powerful motor can handle the large, square ice cubes from standard refrigerators, and the suction cup feet help anchor it while it's working. A scoop for shaping and packing snow cones is included; it matches the color of the snow hopper.

There are two bonus fruit flavor packets already included, but any juice, syrup, or liqueur available can work. (Maple syrup in "snow" is a traditional East Coast treat.) Or, for a more savory approach, try shaved ice with minced shallots and lemon juice spooned over oysters on the half shell.

The Deluxe Ice Shaver cleans up easily (it mostly just needs to be wiped dry). Unplug before cleaning, and be careful of the blade; it is very sharp. The appliance measures 8 inches across by 11 inches high. Rival provides a limited warranty against defects in material and workmanship under normal use conditions.--Garland Withers

Customer Reviews

Fluffy?
I wouldn't call the ice this machine makes either 'fluffy' or 'shaved'; it's more like granita. Which is fine if that's what you want -- it makes nice fine granular ice for margaritas and whatnot, and passes for snowcones. But shaved ice it is not, in my opinion. I have a Hawaiian Sweet Islands hand-crank manual ice shaver that does a better job of making fluffy shaved ice. But of course it's more work and not as fast as this Rival electric version.

The hopper only holds about 7 or 8 ice cubes, which is enough to make finely crushed ice to fill up a 16 oz. plastic 'Solo'-type disposable drink cup. I put the drink cup directly under the shaver spout instead of using the provided ice collection bin -- saves the extra step of scooping the ice out of the bin, and as some of the other reviewers here noted the bin is kind of narrow and not that easy to remove the crushed ice from (probably designed that way to keep the unit as compact as possible). Like I said you can only crush ice for about one 16 oz. glass at a time (if you fill the glass to near the top), and you have to turn the unit off to add more ice (this is a safety feature, I'm sure); there's no opening in the top of the lid to allow you to feed more ice into the machine.

The included small recipe booklet suggests freezing some drinks into cubes and then shaving them, but so far I've avoided doing this because I don't find the appliance really all that easy to clean. So just running plain ice cubes through and pouring syrup or a drink over the top of the ice after it's in the drinking glass seems to bypass that particular complication.

Amazon's description says the unit comes with '2 flavor packets (blue-raspberry and grape),' but the flavor packets I received were lime and pina colada, so don't get your heart set -- I think you're probably going to end up with whatever flavors the person (or machine) packaging the unit throws in there. But for me it wasn't a big issue. I give it 3 stars for:

PROS:
Fast operation when it is crushing the ice
Acceptable finely crushed granular ice for snowcones and 'blended' drinks (but not really 'Hawaiian' snowcones or 'shaved' ice). You might get similar results with a good blender or food processor. (Although I haven't done any comparison testing.)
Safety features: non-operational when lid disengaged, rubber feet to help steady it on the counter top.
Compact, with a footprint of only about 6 inches in diameter on the counter top.
Reasonable price, if the unit continues to operate for a time. (Seems some reviewers here only got theirs to function for about a month; although they don't mention how much use or abuse they put theirs through. I treat my appliances pretty gently.)

CONS:
Faux 'shaved' ice
No way to feed ice into the unit while it is running
Not that convenient to clean
Essentially non-functional ice collection bin
Small amount of shaved ice per operating cycle (Don't expect it to keep the party going if you're having more than about a half dozen people over ...) The flip side being it doesn't take up much counter or shelf space.
Questions about durability. Some of the other comments here about plastic gears and the appliance breaking after a month have me a bit concerned. I've had mine for somewhere around a month but I don't give it heavy use: so far I've only used it for about a dozen drinks.

Internal plastic gear broke after only 1 month
I Received the unit and used it everyday for 1 month. It made great shaved ice from just ice cubes but then it stopped working. The motor turned but the ice cube holder didn't. I disassembled it to see why it stopped working and found a maze of cheap plastic gears inside, one of which was cracked in 2 pieces. I don't recommend it for durability.

GREAT!... for a month
This ice shaver worked great while it lasted. With daily usage the plastic gears broke after one month and the shaver is now history. I would recommend purchasing a more durable shaver.

Other observations while the shaver worked:
The ice bin catches the ice well but the thin, crescent shape makes pouring the ice out messy and tedious. Spooning out little bits with a spoon or spatula is easier.

The shaver can be disassembled for cleaning. However, if the alignment is not set EXACTLY the hopper will not spin = no shaved ice.