Ice cream float

For the beverage line inspired by ice cream soda, see Floats.

"Black Cow" redirects here. For the 1977 song by Steely Dan, see Aja (album).

The ice cream soda, float (United States and East Asia) or spider (Australia and New Zealand) is a beverage that typically consists of scoops of ice cream in either a soft drink or a mixture of flavored syrup and carbonated water. The tiny bubbles of air present in the soda cause the ice cream to float and are nucleation sites for the formation of large bubbles of carbon dioxide. This gives the beverage a "foamy head" similar to a beer head. The beverage originated in Canada in the late 1800's by inventor James William Berweick.

Origins

Robert M. Green's account, published in Soda Fountain magazine in 1910, states that while operating a soda fountain at the Franklin Institute's semi-centennial celebration in Philadelphia in 1874, he wanted to create a new treat to attract customers away from another vendor who had a fancier, bigger soda fountain. After some experimenting, he decided to combine ice cream and soda water. During the celebration, he sold vanilla ice cream with 16 different flavors of soda water. The new treat was a sensation, and soon other soda fountains began selling ice cream sodas.

Fred Sanders, however, owned a successful confectionery, the Pavilion of Sweets, in Detroit, first opened in 1875. One night, some customers came in shortly before closing time and ordered sweet cream sodas. Sanders' ice delivery hadn't come that day, leading his sweet cream to go sour, so he used ice cream instead.

Regardless of its origins, the beverage quickly became very popular, to such a degree that it was almost socially obligatory among teens; although, many adults abhorred it. According to legend, it was banned, either entirely or on holy days, by some local governments, giving rise to a substitute treat, the ice cream sundae.

Variations

Variations of the ice cream soda are as countless as the varieties of soda and flavors of ice cream, but some have become more prominent over the years than others.

Root beer float

Also known as a "brown cow" or "black cow", the root beer float is traditionally made with vanilla ice cream and root beer, but can also be made with other flavors.

In the United States and Canada, the chain A&W Restaurants are well known for their root beer floats. The Friendly's chain also had a variation known as a "sherbet cooler," which was a combination of orange or rainbow sherbet and seltzer water. (Presently, it is billed as a "slammer".)

The definition of a brown cow varies by region. For instance in some localities, a "root beer float" has strictly vanilla ice cream; a float made with root beer and chocolate ice cream is a "chocolate cow" or a "brown cow."

In 2008, the Dr Pepper Snapple Group introduced its Float beverage line. This includes A&W Root Beer and Sunkist flavors which attempt to simulate the taste of their respectful ice cream float flavors in a creamy, bottled drink.

Boston cooler

A Boston cooler is typically composed of ginger ale and vanilla ice cream. Variations abound, however, with club soda, sherbet, rum, vanilla vodka, milk, sugar, or even coffee sometimes added or substituted for the key ingredients. In Ohio, the root beer floats are also referred to as a Boston cooler.

The origin of the Boston cooler lies in Detroit, Michigan, the city in which Fred Sanders is credited with inventing the ice cream soda. Originally, a drink called a Vernors Cream was served as a shot or two of sweet cream poured into a glass of Vernors golden ginger ale. Later, vanilla ice cream was substituted for the cream as a Vernors float. Unlike a float however, a Boston Cooler is blended like a thick milk shake. In fact, both Sanders' soda fountains and the Big Boy restaurant chain used their milkshake blenders to prepare the drink (it was a signature menu item at Big Boy until its change in ownership in the 1980's). It is known that by the 1880s the Boston cooler was being served in Detroit, made with the local Vernors, an intense golden ginger ale, unlike the common modern dry ginger ales. The name almost certainly has no connection to Boston, Massachusetts, where the beverage is virtually unknown. One theory is that it was named after Detroit's Boston Boulevard, the main thoroughfare of what was then an upper-class neighborhood a short distance from James Vernor's drugstore.

It can be found most often in the Detroit region's many Coney Island-style restaurants, which are plentiful because of Detroit's Greektown district influence. National Coney Island is one of the few restaurant chains to list the Boston cooler in their menu. It is also found at the Detroit-area Dairy Queens and at Halo Burger, a mid-Michigan fast food chain.

Snow White

The Snow White is made with 7 Up and vanilla ice cream.

The origins of this dessert is unknown, but it is found in some Asian eateries.

Coke float

Coca-Cola brand sodas and soft serve ice cream. ('Coke float' is also a common term in the West Coast of Scotland for any cola-based ice cream soda).

Purple cow

In the context of ice cream soda, a purple cow is vanilla ice cream in Concord grape soda. The Purple Cow, a restaurant chain in the southern United States, features this and similar beverages.

Sources

• Funderburg, Anne Cooper. "Sundae Best: A History of Soda Fountains" (2002) University of Wisconsin Popular Press. ISBN 0-87972-853-1.
• Gay, Cheri Y. (2001). Detroit Then and Now, p. 5. Thunder Bay Press. ISBN 1-57145-689-9.
• Bulanda, George; Bak, Richard; and Ciavola, Michelle. The Way It Was: Glimpses of Detroit's History from the Pages of Hour Detroit Magazine, p. 8. Momentum Books. ISBN 1-879094-71-1.
• Houston, Kay. "Of soda fountains and ice cream parlors." (Date not available.) The Detroit News.
• Alissa Ozols (2008) San Francisco.