Ice cream soda

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File:Soda jerk NYWTS.jpg

Soda jerk passing ice cream soda between two soda fountains

The ice cream soda, float (United Kingdom, Canada, United States and East Asia), spider (Australia), brown cow (Hong Kong) or black cow (Brazil, El Salvador) is a beverage that consists of one or more scoops of ice cream in either a soft drink or a mixture of flavored syrup and carbonated water. In the United Kingdom cream soda was named that as it was traditionally served with a dollop of ice cream floating in it making ice cream soda. 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.

Origins

The ice cream soda was invented by Robert M. Green in Philadelphia, PA, in 1874 during the sesquicentennial celebration. The traditional story is that, on a particularly hot day, Mr. Green ran out of ice for the flavored sodas he was selling and used vanilla ice cream from a neighboring vendor to keep his sodas cold. His own account, published in Soda Fountain magazine in 1910, states that while operating a soda fountain at the Franklin Institute's sesquicentennial 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 soda water and a choice of 16 different flavored syrups. The new treat was a sensation, and soon other soda fountains began selling ice cream sodas. Green's will instructed that "Originator of the Ice Cream Soda" was to be engraved on his tombstone.

There are at least three other claimants for the invention of ice cream soda: Fred Sanders, Philip Mohr, and George Guy, one of Robert Green's own employees. 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. As soda was marketed as a miracle cure, it was often considered a substance that required oversight and control like alcohol, another controlled substance that could not be served or purchased on Sundays in many conservative areas. Many soda fountains had to figure out a way to turn a profit on Sundays when selling soda was considered illegal. The solution was to serve ice cream on these days, as it is merely a food product and not a controlled substance. Soda fountains then coined the term "Sundaes" for the ice cream concoctions that they served on "soda's day of rest".

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.

Chocolate Ice Cream Soda

This ice cream soda starts with approximately one ounce of chocolate syrup, then several scoops of vanilla ice cream in a tall glass. Unflavored carbonated water is added until the glass is filled and the resulting foam rises above the top of the glass. The final touch is a topping of whipped cream and usually, a maraschino cherry. This variation of ice cream soda was available at local soda fountains and nationally, at Dairy Queen stores for many years.

Root beer float

File:Root Beer Float.jpg

Root beer float, a type of ice cream soda.

Also known as a "black cow" or "brown 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 definition of a black 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 some places a "brown cow" was made with cola instead of root beer.

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

The origin of the name "black cow" has always been of interest to food and beverage experts and allegedly dates to August 1893 in Cripple Creek, Colorado. The only source of this story is the great-grand-nephew of Frank J. Wisner, who has popularized it through advertising on his soft drink products and website. Wisner, owner of the Cripple Creek Cow Mountain Gold Mining Company, had been producing a line of soda waters for the citizens of the then-booming Cripple Creek gold mining district. He had been trying to create a special drink for the children of Cripple Creek and came up with an idea while staring out at his properties on Cow Mountain on a moonlit night. The full moon's glow on the snow capped Cow Mountain reminded him of a dollop of vanilla ice cream floating on top of his blackened Cow Mountain. As he told the story later, he was inspired by this view to hurry back to his bar and add a big scoop of vanilla ice cream to the one soda water he produced that the children of Cripple Creek seemed to like best - Myers Avenue Red root beer - and served it the very next day. The drink was an instant hit. Originally named "Black Cow Mountain", the local children shortened this to "black cow". Wisner was known to say many times in his later years that if he had a nickel for every time someone ordered a black cow, he'd have been a rich man.

Boston cooler

A Boston cooler is typically composed of Vernors 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.

The origin of the Boston cooler lies in Detroit, Michigan, the city in which Fred Sanders is credited with inventing the ice cream soda. The name has no connection to Boston, Massachusetts, where the beverage is virtually unknown. One theory suggests 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 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 most modern dry ginger ales. 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. Both Sanders' soda fountains and Michigan-based Big Boy restaurants (which had Boston coolers as a signature item until the Elias Brothers sold their franchise to new ownership in the 1980s) used their milkshake blenders to prepare the drink.

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 Flint, Michigan based fast food chain.

A Boston Cooler is also available on the menu at the Chow Food Bar in San Francisco.

Snow White

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

The origin of this variation is unknown, but it is found in some Asian eateries.

Purple cow

In the context of ice cream soda, a purple cow is vanilla ice cream in purple grape soda. The Purple Cow, a restaurant chain in the southern United States, features this and similar beverages. In a more general context, a purple cow may refer to a non-carbonated grape juice and vanilla ice cream combination.

Sherbet cooler

The Friendly's chain also had a variation known as a "sherbet cooler," which was a combination of orange or watermelon sherbet, vanilla syrup and seltzer water. (Presently, it is billed as a "slammer".)

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." (February 11, 1996) The Detroit News.
• Alissa Ozols (2008) San Francisco.

External links

de:Cream soda