Today is Ice Cream Soda Day, and everybody’s getting in the spirit. An ice cream soda, or “float,” is essentially just a mix of ice cream and any carbonated beverage, and believe it or not, it was invented exactly one hundred and forty years ago in the city of Philadelphia.
The origin legend of the float dictates that a soda shop owner by the name of Robert Green started putting ice cream in his sodas after running out of ice at Philly’s sesquicentennial celebration. Although multiple other men (including one of his own employees) claim to have developed the concept in the years preceding, Green is still recognized as the true inventor in most circles, and reportedly even had it emblazoned upon his tomb stone.
In recent years, some of the traditional ice cream soda flavors from the first half of the 1900s have begun to come back into prominence including the black cow (Coca Cola and vanilla ice cream), the boston cooler (ginger ale and vanilla ice cream), and the popular root beer float. If you’re looking for something a bit more modern with a tasty twist though, try some of these enticing combinations:
Sierra Mist and strawberry ice cream, Squirt and orange sherbet, blood orange flavored soda with classic vanilla, ginger ale and lemon ice, sparkling apple juice with mango sorbet, or cream soda with chocolate ice cream. Yum.
