Ice Cream Floats

[Lyle]

No perhaps about it, this is heresy: I strongly prefer the Coca-Cola float.

[Ye-Ye Girl]

When I was little and my family went on road trips, first choice to stop for lunch was the nearest A&W drive-in. Teen Burger (the "Burger Family" member with bacon, natch) and a root beer float. Wish they were still around these parts.

There's still a full-fledged A&W Drive-In down in Kent on Central, a few blocks from Taqueria El Rinconsito. A meal of bacon cheeseburger, onion rings and root beer float there is one of my favorite summer pasttimes.

[jhlurie]

When I was a kid, we'd spend part of almost every summer in upstate New York--around the Lake George area. The local A & W parking lot was a major gathering area, a bonifide part of the local "culture", and I think this was not at all atypical for this franchise. Even as a cream soda drinker, it was obviously a place that had some meaning.

These days, the only place I see A & W is at a mall. It's just not the same.

[Holly Moore]

Here's the thing about root beer floats. Sounds like a great concept. Looks good in the mug. But:

1. The Foam. Some sort of wierd chemical reaction goes on between the root beer and the ice cream. It produces an empty and strange tasting foam. Always reminds me of the baking soda volcanos that won blue ribbons at junior high science fairs.

2. The Ice Cream. It is impossible to eat. Too slithery to whack at with a spoon and too bouncy / buoyant to get one's mouth around. A root beer float should not cause such frustration.

That said, I am not a fast learner. I always order a root beer float when it is on the menu. And if someone ever engineers out the frustration and builds a better root beer float, I will beat a path to his door.

[jhlurie]

Isn't the foam--that odd substance which is neither ice cream nor soda--the whole point? I've gotten that same type of foam with Coke and Cream Soda floats, so its not just the root beer.

[col klink]

Hey, did you ever try out that other natural soda?

Yup, just this morning. I thought it was very tasty but Batgrrrl thought it was too tart. But isn't that what lemonade supposed to be?

To keeps things on track, Shielke, have you tried the Thomas Kemper root beer? If I have, I certainly can't remember but I recall a couple of people liking it.

[Schielke]

Yeah the Thomas Kemper is a pretty good product. Much better than the average 2 liter brand.

I really like the root beer at The Ram here in Seattle (and Spokanne too I think).

Ben

[Ye-Ye Girl]

Thomas Kemper is my favorite root beer ever, especially if it's pulled from the tap. Henry Weinhard root beer isn't too bad either.

[alacarte]

I always order a root beer float when it is on the menu.  And if someone ever engineers out the frustration and builds a better root beer float, I will beat a path to his door.

Hear, hear!

[maggiethecat]

Kara: I hate root beer, so I'm not qualified to judge the technical aspects of The Float.

But this is a lovely piece of writing!

For me, it is the Gingerale Float. My Grandad used to make them for me after dinner. We'd sit on the sunporch, watch the sun set over Toronto, and count fireflies.

[JAZ]

My lasting A&W root beer float memory:

When you drive from Seattle east to Pullman (which you do regularly if your parents live in Seattle and you go to Washington State University), a good place for a break is the A&W in Vantage (or at least it used to be 20-plus years ago when I was making the drive).

So there we were at the A&W -- my sister, my parents and me -- outside at the car, drinking our various drinks. My father was standing outside the car and had set his root beer float on top of the car. My mother was sitting in the car, but with the door open -- she was sitting sideways with her legs outside. Of course Dad reached out for his drink without looking and knocked it over onto Mom's head, and of course Mom was too surprised to get out of the way, so she discovered a new hair gel the hard way.

[alacarte]

August 6 was Root Beer Float day. Did anyone celebrate?

[babyluck]

Oh, yes. I had a terrible day yesterday, drove home late in the rain, went to the fridge to get some leftover Chinese & realized why I had a bottle of root beer in there -- it cheered me up immediately. Mine was Barq's and Breyer's. Actually, light Breyer's if you must know -- DH is on a D**T. I know I won't get much agreement here, but actually I sometimes go for light ice cream for taste reasons too. Well, more like mouthfeel reasons or digestive contentment reasons, I guess. My taste for fat & sugar seems to be dissipating with my youth. (Never mind the cheese steak & fries w/ gravy I had for lunch today...)

Breyer's was on sale, I guess to launch its new lower-calorie options. Has anyone seen these? It's very wierd. There's a version called "All Natural" because it sticks to the Breyer's pledge. That's the lowfat version that's been around for a while. Then there are the new ones -- 98% fat free Vanilla or Chocolate, and a "2% milk" vanilla. The new ones contain something that makes them less than "All Natural" -- I think it's the mono & diglycerides? Whatever it is, having 3 different lowfat versions is nice, I guess, but extremely confusing since the differences are so subtle between them. (Needless to say, I got the one marked "All Natural" -- their marketing department probably rationalized that customers wouldn't feel betrayed by the lack of that claim, but I did.) Here's the website.

Anyway, our RBFs were just lovely (though if it were up to me I'd go back to full fat ice cream for this application). Personally, I have a keen appreciation for RBF foam -- in fact, I thoroughly enjoy the whole process. Sucking up the foam, taking a few sips of soda, then eating the ice cream with a long spoon, scraping away from the outside and getting a little soda in my spoon with every bite. I always leave most of the soda until last, so I can wash everything down with the root beer -- when it's opaque and creamy from the ice cream and still cold, is there anything better than that??

Being a Hunterdon Cty kid growing up, our place for RBFs was Stewart's, of course. I always went out of my way to go to the one in Ringoes instead of Lebanon because they used frosty glass mugs, not paper cups. On a recent trip, I was shocked to learn that the frosty mugs were no more. I haven't been let down like that since Woolworth's closed. I really never thought it would happen. Especially when you just get a root beer with no ice cream, the experience of undiluted, creamy, rich root beer that stayed cold forever in the frosty mug is precious -- tons of crushed ice and a waxy taste from the cup just doesn't do it for me.

On a happier note, I noticed today that Steve's Lunch (my local cheese steak purveyor) has Boylan's Birch Beer (fountain, not bottles). Yum.

[Kenk]

My favorite float combination is any dark chocolate ice cream in a cherry soda.

What is your favorite float?

[FistFullaRoux]

I like the classics. Coke, root beer, or orange soda. With vanilla ice cream.

Yummy...

[Carolyn Tillie]

A scoop of really good coffee ice cream (Starbucks, B&J's, or Double Rainbow) and fresh, hot, really strong French Press coffee made with Wolf-brand coffee.

Perfection.

[Katherine]

Vanilla ice cream and Moxie.

[Comfort Me]

My grandmother used to make chocolate ice cream in 7-up, which I love to this day! I had a roommate who swore by Neopolitan in Green River, but the sight of it always made me want to hurl!

[Richard Kilgore]

I have not had an ice cream soda in a long time, but a standout from my childhood: The Purple People Eater -- Scoops of vanilla ice cream, layered with orange soda and rootbeer.

[LJC]

Vanilla ice cream and Root Beer gets my vote, but I haven't had one in ages. With all the interesting ice cream flavors being made in restaurants I am surprised that the ice cream float has not made a come back. How does ginger ice cream and sprite sound? or maybe, muscavato and coke? I guess it's time to experiment.

[Jaymes]

In addition to the classics, I really like orange juice (not soda) and vanilla ice cream. Yum. And love any flavor sherbet in 7-Up.

Also, for a change, I'll go with root beer and chocolate ice cream. Reminds me when I was a kid and cherry Cokes were all the rage. Of course, in those days, it didn't come in a can already premixed. You ordered a Coke with cherry syrup. Except me. I got a root beer with chocolate syrup.

Edited March 1, 2004 by Jaymes (log)

[Shiewie]

Root beer with vanilla ice-cream or coffee with vanilla ice-cream.

[Rachel Perlow]

I just had one the other day, using some Breyer's Dulce de leche and Cherry Coke. Good combination.

Ginger Ale with Vanilla is good too, but my favorite has to be the traditional root beer float.

[Suzanne F]

Rachel, did you know that if you blend Vernor's Ginger Ale (from Detroit) and vanilla ice cream, that's known as a Boston Cooler? Don't make no sense to me, neither.

I used to love coffee ice cream in root beer. Has anyone had any of Gale Gand's ice cream sodas? Doesn't she do something like that?

[Rachel Perlow]

So, of course I just had to have one. Barq's root beer with the Dulce de leche ice cream. Mmm.

Brought to mind a new question: Do you have to use a spoon? That is, do you try to have ice cream left over to eat with a spoon, or do you continuously stir it around with your straw (you must use a straw, otherwise foam goes up your nose) so that at the end it is a creamy soda, rather than two separate things.

Also, if you have trouble dealing with the foaming that occurs when pouring soda over ice cream, and of course it makes no difference if you add the ice cream after you pour the soda, it still foams up. The solution? Use a larger glass! I poured a 12 oz can of soda into a mix master metal cup. Then added my scoop of ice cream. The foam peaked in a nice arch at the top of the cup. Perfection!