The Glory of the Boston Cooler

This might just be because I've been drinking nothing but Ginger Ale for the past few days. But, people, you have not lived until you've had a Boston Cooler.

Which isn't, by the way, named for Boston at all. It's named for Boston Boulevard in Detroit where it was supposedly invented. You wouldn't want to, say, walk into a bar at Harvard and order such a thing. Not that I've, you know, tried such to my frustrated embarrassment or anything.

So, if you're not from the Detroit area you've probably never heard of such things. In fact, even if you are from there you might not have known about it. I know I only stumbled across this delicious treat some time later in my life than in my formative years so it's not like you can go to a movie theater and get one with your popcorn or waltz into a Micky D's and wrap your knuckle on the counter to order one up. No, you have to go to out of the way places, old places, where they try and keep alive regional delicacies like this one to find the thing. Before you start getting too daunted by the prospect, this isn't exactly fancy fare. First, what you do is take a Root Beer Float. Simple, right? You've probably had one of those before, I'm hoping, because they're great in and of themselves. But for a Boston Cooler what you do is take out the Root Beer and replace it with Ginger Ale.

That's it.

That's all it is. A glass of Ginger Ale with some ice cream floating in it.

There are basically a lot of different ways to combine different flavors of carbonated liquids and ice cream together – I love all of them, really, from the fruity Fanta versions in Brazil to the Friendly's slammers – and this is but one of them. And an admittedly obscure one. But, oh the wonderous taste sensation that makes. Like with a brown cow the ice cream interacts with the soda (Which, since I'm from Michigan I should probably be calling “pop” but, meh.) and creates a frothy bubbly mix of ice creamy soda with slowly melting lumps of ice cream in it.

Now, there are a few things you have to do to make a real Boston Cooler. You can't just slap any old ice cream into any old ginger ale and expect culinary magic. The real version is going to melt in your mouth and tingle on your lips – creamy and spicy all at the same time.

The first thing you're going to need is Ginger Ale, of course, and it should be well chilled. Cold actually makes your taste buds work better so not only will it help to leave some of the ice cream unmelted when that chilled liquid hits your tongue it'll be priming it for every taste to follow. But, again, not just any ginger ale will do. You need real golden ginger ale. Like Vernor's (If you pour yourself a glass of it, and reach over to take a good sniff, and suddenly find yourself sputtering, sneezing, and coughing, well, that's how you know you've found the good stuff.). Not dry ginger ale like Canada Dry. That's nice for mixing drinks but it's like seltzer water with a little bit of flavoring compared to just how complex the flavors of golden ginger ale can be. Vernor's, for example, (Which lays claim to being the oldest soda pop ever produced, being made since around the American Civil War.) is aged in a wooden barrel for four years before it ever hits anyone's glass. Of course, as a Detroit institution, I highly recommend Vernor's for this sort of thing but it's not really available everywhere so you'll just have to make due.

The other ingredient is the ice cream. Which is, traditionally, vanilla flavored. Since vanilla shares a lot of flavor profiles with certain compounds which are created with aging in wooden containers, well, it works really well with, say, a ginger ale aged in wooden barrels. Personally, the best ice cream I can find are the ones I make for myself. There's nothing quite like homemade ice cream in a float or a milkshake and I do try to have a ready supply of vanilla on hand because, really, it goes with just about everything from pies to chocolate sauces to any number of such drink concoctions. I understand, though, that churning your own cream is a bit much for most people so store bought ice cream will work just as well. If you're going for the real Detroit experience then you'll want Saunder's brand ice cream (Which, I believe, is actually owned by the same company as Vernor's now but it's also the brand started by the man who came up with a Boston Cooler in the first place and who might very well have invented ice cream floats in the first place, Frank Saunders – shortly after Mr. Vernor began selling his soda pop.) or possibly Stroh's. That's the ice cream not the beer, by the way, and you can thank Prohibition for that one. But your favorite brand will do otherwise – French Vanilla, Vanilla Bean included, just “plain” Vanilla, they all will work. The thing to look for would be something rich and creamy. A smooth texture somewhere between regular New York style ice cream and soft serve would be best because you want it to be drinkable. By the way, don't be afraid of a really flavorful vanilla here because that ginger ale is going to need something strong to stand up to it. A weak and bland ice cream is just going to be overwhelmed. You won't even taste it if you've got a good soda.

If you're going for the whole works you'll want to get a thick glass mug and stick it in the freezer for, say, a half an hour before making things. It'll help keep things nice and cool for you to enjoy. And it looks really nice at a party if everyone has their own frosted cup.

Combine the two. Pour in the soda first and leave some room because when you add the ice cream it's going to bubble up considerably. Add as much or as little as you like. I generally like a ratio of two parts soda to one part ice cream. Resist, if you can, the urge to eat the thing right away and give it a few minutes for the froth to subside and the ice cream to melt a bit. If you do then the creamy vanilla goodness will have seeped into each and every last sip of the soda making it almost like a milkshake you don't have to stir or whip together (A common stomach remedy where I'm from is to drink ginger ale, especially with milk. This, then, is just a really tasty way of doing that although from experience I'm not sure I'd recommend it when your stomach aches.). Done right you should be able to leave your spoon aside and just drink the whole thing straight out of your glass. Using a spoon to scoop out the ginger ale coated lumps of rapidly dissolving ice cream is perfectly acceptable, as well.

Actually, since this is a Detroit thing, you can eat or drink it pretty much any way you want and no one's going to raise much of a fuss. We're very comfortable with the whole “to each their own” thing around there. And a Boston Cooler is just one of the things that's our own. There are lots of others. So, next time, maybe I'll talk about the real way to make an Egg Cream.