I’m an American but I just recently become obsessed with ice cream soda floats and my favorite is the Orange one but why is rootbeer the most popular one?

35 comments

  1. Because it’s the best pop to make a float, and I’m willing to get into a fist fight over this.

  2. Root beer is a vanilla based soda that I believe fits in better with plain ice cream as is used in a traditional soda float.

  4. I think that root beer was probably cheap / popular at the same time as ice cream so the two were mixed together

  6. Probably because root beer has been around for a really long time and became the norm for a float before other soda flavors were available.
    My fav is with strawberry soda if you can find it.

  10. The bubbles it makes seems creamier to me. I may be wrong, but other flavors just don’t hit the same note for me. Root beer or riot.

  11. Because it’s historically made that way, dating back to the first root beer float created in 1893. The A&W chain is known for popularizing root beer floats.

    Personally if I were to have an ice ream float I’d have a Coca-Cola one.

  13. I’m just happy that two people have already commented that it is the best POP to make a float with. MN represent!!!

  14. These loser false Americans not realizing a doctor pepper float is superior or that birch beer floats are gods own float.

    I truly didn’t know we had so many communist infiltrators.

  16. Answer: A&W marketing

    If you do a sprite float with the clear A&W mugs it looks like it’s hanging in midair

    Orange soda float is the best combo

    ~ former A&W waitress

  24. idk, root beer is gross imo it tastes kinda like toothpaste so I always used coke or strawberry fanta

  25. Vanilla is a very complementary flavor to root beer because root beer itself usually has considerable vanilla. You’re just accentuating the vanilla element. The ultimate flavor profile isn’t a whole lot different. It’s just more vanilla-y.

    While I also find the orange/vanilla combo delicious, not everybody would agree. A lot of people don’t like the sour and sweet combination.

    I think this is along the same lines of why we have Coke Vanilla and Dr. Pepper Vanilla. Both of those sodas also already have vanilla in the recipe. Yet we don’t have Mountain Dew Vanilla or Sprite Vanilla.

    Also, I’ve always enjoyed how foreigners largely detest root beer and don’t understand how people enjoy it. Who says America doesn’t have a culture?

  26. I prefer cream soda which is similar to root beer. Or maybe sprite or something similar.

  29. Root Beer and ice cream tastes good

    I also love a good orange or cherry soda with root beer. Cherry and chocolate ice cream is wonderful.

  31. You can make a float with anything you like but to me a root beer float tastes best. Part of it is probably nostalgia and marketing.

  32. It’s traditional. It’s like asking why is pepperoni the most common pizza topping. Because it just works and people like it and so it never changed.

  33. Ice cream and soda goes back to around 1880 and at that time it was not root beer, it was all syrup flavors.

    Root beer wasn’t done until 1893 in Colorado. It gained in popularity, however, a float just needs to be soda and ice cream and OP if you prefer orange and vanilla, that’s a perfectly fine float.

    In fact many old school soda jerk places will still do these other floats. Ever had a lime float? Try it. In the heat of summer it’s a cool, unique taste.

    Try a Dr Pepper float or a Coke float. Ginger ale. Sky is the limit on these and several have unique names, just like alcoholic drinks.

    So while the root beer is the most common by far and the most prevalent, it’s far from the only and most of the others come out either before the root beer float or out of prohibition as far as I can tell.

  34. That’s unheard of here. In North Carolina it’s usually a Cheerwine float or a Coke/Pepsi float.

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