I cannot believe kids today don’t ‘like’ root beer floats!
Every year on National Root Beer Float Day, Americans celebrate the frothy combination of root beer and vanilla ice cream — a summertime favorite whose story begins centuries before the first scoop ever hit the soda.
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Root beer’s relegation to a nostalgic soda and its fading popularity among younger consumers is a shame, Albala said.
“It’s a very original American soda that goes back much further than the commercial brands that exist now, and the combination of ice cream is a unique and fascinatingly lovely thing,” he said.
Full article, HERE from Fox News.
A&W Root Beer drive ins were our favorite ‘hangout’ when we got cars and could drive. And especially in the summer! Those ice cold mugs filled with root beer and a scoop of ice cream were great! Especially since most of us didn’t have AC in our cars!!!
And we made many a lap between the two A&Ws in town every Friday and Saturday night, looking for girls, or with our dates (seeing and being seen). What can I say… Teenagers… LOL
Now days, very few A&Ws exist in the US, and kids drive around in air conditioned comfort if they drive at all… sigh…
Most of them seem to be at home playing on the computers or their phones.
Since I have some A&W root beer, and some vanilla ice cream, I had a root beer float in celebration last night!
26 mile ride to the nearest AW in Sweet Home. Real old-fashioned drive in. I try to get there for a float at least once a week.
I think part of the decline in Root Beer’s popularity was the removal of sassafras, today’s Root Beer just doesn’t taste as good. I don’t recall any of us getting cancer from the good stuff. Yeah A&W was the best.
there are a few vids on youtube showing the fifa visitors from the EU and UK etc, trying rootbeer floats for the first time. pretty funny.
Sassafras: Banned by the FDA in 1960 due to concerns that it increases the chance for cancer. Also can raise blood pressure. Classed as a schedule 1 drug (no medicinal use) and thus banned for production, storage, or sale.
Apparently it’s possible to have a sassafras high from consuming enough of the stuff, which is probably the real reason the FDA banned it.
And because I’m feeling contrary, and want to stick a thumb in the eye of the FDA for being a bunch of killjoys, here’s a video on how to make your own sassafras root beer, queued to the part where he starts actually making a one gallon batch:
https://youtu.be/3DLHOMIM9d0?t=120
Sassafras: I plead the Fifth.
This year on Nat’l Root Beer Day I visited a restaurant which makes excellent floats. The first was so good that contented I sat while contemplating a second float. So I did. This case the 2nd as good as the 1st.
I always liked root beer, but never liked floats. My pre-school aged grandkids love root beer, but I don’t let them drink too much. They’d drink a gallon a day if they could.
Doing a quick internet search I discovered that A&W continues to be one of the most popular fast food restaurants in Canada, and that they don’t use high fructose corn syrup in Canadian A&W root beer. Here’s an interesting comparator by someone who tried both A&W in Bellingham (WA) and in White Rock (BC), both near me.
https://sodafry.com/2024/10/15/aw-usa-vs-canada/
The nearest A&W to me is a 35 mile drive.A few years back I knew a gentleman that operated a stand at festivals and such where he peddled his homemade root beer and cream soda. Both were delicious.
Birch Beer is better!!
There are few things on this earth as revolting as root beer and very few ways to ruin ice cream as effective as a root beer float.
My parents-to-be met at the only A&W in town. She was a car hop, he was a customer. Sadly, it is now a chinese restaurant.
CT Ginger: have you considered therapy? 🙂
Ewww. A&W is no good. BK root beer from the BK rootbeer (hamburgers hot dogs, tenderloins and every fried food omaginable) stands in Indiana is hands down the best.
We had Stewart’s Root Bear stands in NJ when I was a kid. Carside service on a tray, or dine inside, usually at a lunch counter. I loved them so much I still try to stop in when I am back there visiting family. A freshly burger, hot fries, and a nice big frosty mug of root beer is a treat. (Some have since closed entirely, or changed format into storefront locations in strip malls.)
Root beer floats are good, but I like root beer and vanilla ice cream better separately.
That brings back memories. Cincinnati Ohio (well Sharonville) “Root Beer Stand” (1980s). Formerly A&W changed when A&W wanted $10k/yr for the name. Made his own root beer (most excellent) and gave a tennis ball to every kid that came in. Had great footlongs too. Amazing collection of baseball hats hanging everywhere.
Brown Cow was my favorite (root beer and chocolate ice cream).
Went to DQ for a small Blizzard. $7 bucks? For a cup and 1/4 of Ice Cream? Not worth it.
SING IT WITH ME!
A&W root beer’s got that frosty mug taste,
A&W root beer’s got that frosty mug taste,
A&W root beer’s got that frosty mug taste!
(and if you act now, we’ll send you a FREE earworm for the rest of the day!)
(if there was a closing line, I’ve forgotten it)
1919 Root beer.
I love coke floats, but I never cared for root beer floats. But my parents rarely bought root beer. I in my teens before I ever visited an A&W. We just didn’t have them in my part of East Tennessee.
The Combo A&W/KFC in my city is filthy. The nearest decent one is a ten mile drive. A neighbor, who doesn’t drive, likes her root beer float so we go there once a month. Decent burgers, too.
All- Thanks for the info, and Hereso, that is an ‘interesting’ video comparison. My nearest A&W is 2 hours away in Grand Praire… sigh
I know everybody has their own ‘favorite’ places, and that’s fine, the reason ‘I’ went with A&W is that is what I grew up with!
Dog and suds in our town, A&W was across the river and not in our driving loop.
ED- If that worked, it worked! 🙂
Dad introduced me to root beer on our trips up to Western PA before interstates. Frostie, Dad’s, Mug, Stewart’s, A&W, Barq’s, IBC. Most could be found in roadside diners or vending machines at gas stations. In bottles. For 5 cents. Get 2 cents back when you return the bottle.
I’ve had A&W from Puget Sound to the Chesapeake Bay. SO MUCH depends on local manager. The smaller, more remote, the better it seems to taste (food too!).
Dominion Brewery makes a root beer (“Brewed with honey”) that’s My Favorite. They also make a Ginger Beer.