Cool frothy flavors give ice-cream sodas a summer boost

A Taste story on ice-cream sodas and floats?

There is, after all, not much to the construction of a garden-variety, old-fashioned ice-cream soda. You take a glassful of seltzer, add a little chocolate syrup and a scoop of ice cream and you’re done. Or use cola with your ice cream if you’re in the mood for a float. Who needs a recipe?

Ah, but there, friends, is where you just might be mistaken.

Yes, this remembrance of things past can be as simple as it was in soda-jerk days. But we as a nation have become more sophisticated in our food tastes during the past couple of decades, so why not elevate the ice-cream soda to culinary art as well?

That’s the case at Trevi at the Forum Shops at Caesars, which serves Italian sodas in numerous flavors, topped, if the customer wishes, with a scoop of housemade vanilla-bean gelato.

Pastry chef Hank Sbraccia said the basis for the drinks is soda water mixed with Torani Italian syrups.

“We run the gamut on flavors, as far as Torani syrups go,” Sbraccia said. “Anything and everything you can possibly think of, we have.”

His personal favorite: chocolate.

“And then again, there’s hazelnut, which is another one of my favorites,” he said. “And vanilla. Everybody loves vanilla.”

Trevi general manager Brandon Bueltel said fruit flavors such as grape, raspberry, cherry, orange and blackberry are particularly popular with customers.

“I call them the Lifesaver flavors,” he said, adding that customers sometimes will mix flavors, such as strawberry with banana.

Delmonico Steakhouse at The Venetian serves a root-beer float, which seems kind of standard until you learn it’s made with Abita root beer from Louisiana, ground zero for the empire of Delmonico chef/owner Emeril Lagasse.

“Abita is a big beer maker in Louisiana,” said chef de cuisine Ronnie Rainwater. “We found out they did root beer and thought that would be kind of a cool twist.” The flavor profile, he said, is deep and rich.

At Poppy Den at Tivoli Village, it’s not root beer but beer that stars in the floats. While others have done beer floats with porter or stout, executive chef Angelo Sosa said he was inspired by a distributor who introduced him to an organic beer, Samuel Smith, which comes in flavors such as strawberry, cider, apple and apricot.

“My brain just went to, ‘This is going to be amazing, especially in this heat, for a float,’ ” he said. “My mind literally was racing.’ ”

He likes to use Poppy Den’s specialty miso-toffee ice cream, especially with the apple cider flavor.

“It’s almost like an apple pie,” Sosa said. “It ended up tasting marvelous, so we put it on the menu.”

Or drizzle sake-macerated strawberries over ice cream, along with the strawberry beer.

“People love it,” he said. “It’s fun to drink beer with ice cream.”

Poppy Den offers other flavors of ice cream, and root beer for those who don’t want the alcohol in their float.

So what’s the appeal of sodas and floats?

“I believe it’s the carbonation in the soda water with the creaminess of the ice cream,” Sbraccia said.

“I think a lot of it has to do with the look,” Bueltel said. “A lot of times you serve one and people will say: ‘What is that? I want one.’ You see the ice cream, and the colors are vibrant. It flows over the gelato, down through the sparkling water.”

For Rainwater, the appeal is pure nostalgia.

“It takes us back to being a kid,” he said. “Swimming in the pool with your buddies, just hanging out.”

ICE CREAM SODA

Chocolate syrup (recipe follows)

Raspberry syrup (recipe follows)

Pure vanilla extract

Heavy cream, chilled

Club soda or seltzer, chilled

Vanilla ice cream

Strawberry ice cream

Chocolate ice cream

Coffee ice cream

Pour 3 tablespoons of raspberry or chocolate syrup or 1 teaspoon vanilla plus 3 tablespoons heavy cream in a tall ice-cream soda glass. Whisk with a fork, then slowly, while still whisking, add the club soda until the glass is three-quarters full. Add 2 scoops of ice cream, add soda to the top of the glass and serve with a spoon and a straw.

Chocolate syrup:

¾ cup cocoa powder, sieved

Pinch kosher salt

1½ cups sugar

½ teaspoon instant coffee granules

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine the cocoa, salt, sugar and 1 cup of water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the coffee granules, and simmer for 5 minutes. Pour the syrup into a bowl and add the vanilla. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Raspberry syrup:

1 pint fresh raspberries, halved

½ cup sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

Combine the raspberries, sugar and lemon in a container. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight. Strain the syrup into a pitcher, pushing down on the berries to extract all the liquid.

— Recipe from Ina Garten, the Food Network

COLD BREW TEA-TIME ICE CREAM FLOAT

3½ cups cool water

3 cold-brew family-sized tea bags

1½ tablespoons firmly packed brown sugar

Light vanilla-bean ice cream

Whipped cream for garnish (optional)

In 2-quart pitcher, pour water over tea bags; brew 5 minutes, dunking tea bags occasionally. Remove tea bags. Stir in brown sugar until blended. Pour tea into four glasses and top with vanilla ice cream. Garnish, if desired, with whipped cream and serve immediately.

Serves 4.

— Recipe from Breyers

CUBAN COFFEE AFFOGATO

4 teaspoons sugar

1 cup light vanilla ice cream

1 cup strong brewed espresso coffee

Evenly spoon sugar into 4 small coffee cups. Evenly top with ice cream, then pour in espresso.

Serves 4.

— Recipe from Breyers

LEMONADE FLOATS

1 quart lemonade, homemade or from a mix

2 cups orange sorbet or sherbet

Prepare lemonade, if necessary.

Place 1 scoop of sorbet in each of four tall serving glasses. Pour lemonade over sorbet; stir before serving.

Serves 4.

— Recipe adapted from Kraft Foods

FIRECRACKER FLOAT

3 scoops vanilla ice cream

1 envelope Pop Rocks candy, flavor of your choice

1 cup chilled lemon-lime soda

Place a scoop of ice cream in a tall glass; sprinkle with one-third of the candy. Repeat layers twice. Top with soda. Serve immediately.

Serves 1.

— Recipe from Taste of Home

CARAMEL MACCHIATO FLOATS

6 cups cold brewed coffee

1 cup 2 percent milk

1/3 cup caramel flavoring syrup

¼ cup sugar

8 scoops coffee ice cream

8 scoops dulce de leche ice cream

Whipped cream and caramel sundae syrup

Combine the first four ingredients in a large pitcher.

Divide ice cream among eight chilled glasses; pour coffee mixture over top.

Garnish with whipped cream and sundae syrup.

Serves 8.

— Recipe from Taste of Home

COFFEE ALMOND FLOATS

2 tablespoons instant coffee granules

1 tablespoon hot water

2 cups 2 percent milk

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon almond extract

2 scoops vanilla ice cream

In a small pitcher, dissolve coffee granules in hot water. Add the milk, brown sugar and extract. Place a scoop of ice cream in each of two chilled glasses; pour coffee mixture over top.

Serves 2.

— Recipe from Taste of Home

WHITE PEACH FLOATS

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1 2-inch piece fresh ginger, roughly chopped

4 pounds ripe white peaches, roughly chopped

Juice of 1 lemon (about ¼ cup)

4 scoops vanilla ice cream

Fill a bowl halfway with ice water. In a small saucepan, over medium heat, dissolve the sugar in 2 cups of water. Add the ginger, bring to a boil, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes. Remove and discard the ginger. Add half the peaches and cook for 2 minutes. Transfer to the ice water for 1 minute and slip off the skins; set aside. Repeat with the remaining peaches.

Pour the syrup into a bowl to cool (you should have about 1½ cups). Place the peaches and lemon juice in a bowl and, using your hands, crush the fruit. Spoon the pulp into a strainer placed over a bowl, then press it with the back of a spoon to extract the juice (you should have at least 4 cups). Stir in the syrup and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Divide the mixture among 4 glasses and top each with a scoop of the ice cream.

Note: If you have leftover peach juice from the floats, add it to sparkling water or wine to make a spritzer.

Serves 4.

— Recipe from Real Simple

STRAWBERRY FIELDS ICE CREAM FLOAT

4 tablespoons homemade strawberry syrup (recipe follows)

1 cup gin liqueur (recommended: Pimm’s No. 1)

8 scoops strawberry ice cream

½ liter lemon-lime soda

4 strawberries, for garnish

Pour 1 tablespoon of strawberry syrup in each of four glasses. Pour in 2 tablespoons gin and stir. Add 2 scoops ice cream and top with soda. Garnish with a strawberry.

Strawberry syrup:

1 pound strawberries, hulled

½ cup water

½ cup sugar

In a small saucepan, combine all ingredients and bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to a simmer over medium heat until strawberries break down and syrup thickens, about 20 minutes. Strain mixture, return to the saucepan, and reduce for 10 more minutes over medium heat, until syrup is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Chill until ready to serve.

Serves 4.

— Recipes from Sunny Anderson and the Food Network

PORTER FLOAT

Premium vanilla ice cream

A few tablespoonfuls of creamy porter or stout

Fresh raspberries

Fresh mint sprigs

Top premium vanilla ice cream with a few tablespoonfuls of a creamy porter or stout (such as Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout). Add a sprinkle of fresh raspberries and a fresh mint sprig.

Serves 1.

— Recipe from Southern Living

Contact reporter Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@review journal.com or 702-383-0474.