All the Sweet Stuff: Root Beer's Birthday!

It turns out that yesterday was the birthday of the modern root beer float! I hate to admit how long it's been since I've indulged in one. Granny--my mom's mom--used to make them for us on long, hot summer days in Dallas when I was a child. The frothy, sweet and cold beverage (or is it a dessert?) has such a unique flavor--it's like Proustian madeleine transporting me back to Granny's table.

With great respect for the classic soda shop treat, Doni and I had a taste test tonight. We used diet root beer, hoping it would cancel out the ice cream calories. That was a bad idea--it tasted like a root beer float, sure, but it wasn't rich enough and it didn't invoke the magic memories that the right flavor should. So I highly recommend ditching the diet and doing it right.

We also sampled plain vanilla ice cream and chocolate chip vanilla, both Edys Slow Churned. Doni preferred vanilla, but I loved the chocolate chip. I like the texture that it added to the ice cream and the way it just barely dissolved into the soda and left a slight chocolate after-taste. Here's a photo of my chocolate chip root beer float:


Any other interesting root beer float flavors out there?