I hesitate to call this concoction perfect only because perfection in cooking really is in the mouth of the beholder (tongue of the beholder?). I might think a dish is perfect and you might complain that it’s too spicy. Then, of course, I will make fun of you for being a baby, but that is beside the point.

Anyway, this post is about both a technique for making (nearly) perfect floats and some carbonated beverages that you might not have thought of using as a substitute for root beer.

First let’s talk about the technique. While you might think of a float as a pretty simple thing to make (add ice cream, add soda, eat/drink), this technique improves the texture quite a bit. First you have ice cream with enough icy integrity so that you have relatively solid ice cream to eat until the last bite. Second, the head is perfectly fluffy and doesn’t just dissolve away. This means you can have bites of ice cream, of fluff, of ice cream and fluff, AND of ice cream and fluff and soda (oh my!).

I really have to give credit to this technique (and the idea of using oatmeal stout) to my friend Tommy. He brewed a big batch of beer over the summer and so he always had chilled glasses in the freezer. There’s nothing like having a beer in a chilled glass (and it opened up some room in my cabinets) so I began keeping glasses in my freezer as well.

One night, I had a friend over who wanted an ice cream float. I may have already been a little bit tipsy at this point, so I put ice cream in the glasses in the freezer and promptly forgot about them. When I remembered (“Where is my floaaaaaaaat, Z?) the ice cream had formed a little protective ice layer due to the moisture in the freezer. So, when I poured the soda on top, it didn’t melt the ice cream at all. I’ve since refined the technique and also add a freezing period after the first pour so that the head freezes a little bit as well. Trust me, it makes for a perfect float.

Now, you may be a traditionalist and want your plain root beer float and that’s fine. But if you’re willing to experiment a little bit, you will be amply rewarded. Now I’ve tried different sodas (Cherry Coke is a favorite and some people swear by cream soda) and those are fine, but it was Tommy who first told me about a beer float. It sounded gross, I admit, but once you’ve had one properly made, you’ll see what I’m talking about. I prefer oatmeal stout, though I believe a porter would work as well. My roommate Will told me about Guinness and coffee ice cream floats and I do believe I’ll try that out some day, but in this post, I used oatmeal stout. Will was actually the impetus for this post as well, as a friend had mentioned the Guinness and coffee ice cream float and he was craving it, but I talked him into doing oatmeal stout and vanilla bean (“Hey Will, you should get oatmeal stout and vanilla bean instead.” “K.”) The brand of oatmeal stout that our local store carries is by the Lost Coast Brewery and it is pretty good, but I prefer a brand that for the life of me I can’t remember. It comes in a cream colored can (not a bottle) and if I remember correctly, has no picture, but just brown and/or black lettering. I think it’s carried at Trader Joe’s. If anyone knows what it is, please let me know.

Alternately, try Collins Mix. It’s normally used to make a Tom Collins (a gin drink), but I ran out of cherry coke one night and substituted it and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t taste exactly like a Creamsicle. I actually made it for myself so that I could give my guest the Cherry Coke float, but she ended up taking the Collins float from me. It really was one of those fortuitous mistakes and I’d advise everyone to try it.

So, that’s it. A bunch of freezing and creative ingredients and you’ll have…

A (Near) Perfect Float

Now, make one and tell me about your combinations in the comments.