Flavor of the Week: Root Beer Float
on Monday, July 23, 2018
Ah Sassafras…
“Ah sassafras—especially the root,” said nobody ever. But Root Beer? Yes almost everybody loves root beer especially when you throw in some ice cream —it’s the classic root beer float.
You may be surprised that this is a uniquely American drink and not found outside the states that often. In fact, if you ask most people outside the United States what root beer tastes like, they might say cough syrup. Other countries use sassafras as a flavoring for medicine—like how we add cherry flavor to most of ours.
Capturing the flavor of a root beer float as a frozen yogurt means you also must recreate the creamy foam that happens when the ice cream melts into the root beer. There is a lot of science that happens inside that foam which makes for the unique flavor. When that ice cream hits the carbonated root beer, air from inside the ice cream gets released and is then wrapped by the fat. These create little packages of sweet air trapped in cream.
No one knows for certain who first combined root beer with ice cream to make a frosty treat, but many historians believe it was either Robert Green or Fred Sanders. They think the cool concoction was likely invented in the United States in the late 1800s.
Luckily, you can come into Frenzi for our own froyo version of this uniquely American frosty treat! Try a taster first and then think of all the toppings you can add to your “root beer float” that you never thought possible!
Visit our menu to see our seasonal offerings and plan your next visit. Don’t forget to stop by every Wednesday for Waffle Cone Wednesdays – buy one desert and receive one waffle cone or waffle cup free!
