Float Notes

[June 25th, 2008]

Take a scoop of ice cream and drop it in a glass of soda. Watch it fizz. Ah, summer.

Most sources attribute the invention of the ice cream soda to Robert M. Green, who claimed to have run out of cream for the 19th-century equivalent of Italian sodas during a celebration for Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute in 1874 and made a quick substitution. The classic root beer float (or “brown cow”), according to Laura Quarantiello’s The Root Beer Book, didn’t appear until the turn of the century, but it soon took off. Root beer’s strong carbonation makes for bigger foam than floats made with sparkling water or weaker sodas, creating a high-sudsy head that buoys the ice cream to the top of the glass, within easy reach of a spoon.

If all you’re after is a taste of the good old days, you can’t do better than at one of Portland’s two surviving, family-owned pharmacies with working soda fountains. Paulsen’s (4246 NE Sandy Blvd., 287-1163), opened as Nichols in 1918, is the older of the pair by two years, but Fairley’s (7206 NE Sandy Blvd., 284-1159), with its decrepit Coca-Cola sign, exudes more postwar charm. While the interior of Paulsen’s is cramped and spare, the float is genuine: just a dollop of vanilla in a tall glass of root beer pushed across the Formica counter by a distracted modern-day soda jerk. Hand over your $2.50 and suck it down, pal. It’s your patriotic duty.

The pharmacies don’t have a monopoly on nostalgia. University Park’s cute-as-a-baby-panda Little Red Bike Cafe (4823 N Lombard St., 289-0120) prepares a float of Orange Crush and flawless housemade vanilla ice cream, served in a Mason jar ($4). It’s like drinking a Creamsicle in a world where Unilever is owned by kindly grandmothers.

Across town, old-timey Blue Plate Lunch Counter (308 SW Washington St., 295-2583) serves a dozen floats ($3.50) that pair Cascade Glacier ice cream with chef Jeffrey Reiter’s housemade sodas. The Purple Haze’s flavors of hibiscus, allspice and star anise make a surprisingly good accompaniment to vanilla. Want even more variety? Peter Hatcher, proprietor of Moxie’s on Main (1919 Main St., Vancouver, 360-750-1784), will make a float out of any of the 300 sodas in his coolers for just $3.

For sweet-toothed caffeine addicts, Pied Cow Coffeehouse (3244 SE Belmont St., 230-4866) prepares a mocha float ($5.50), warm or iced. It’s a thick, sweet concoction, and drinking one is like sucking a coffee-soaked velour blanket through a straw. Taking the opposite approach, Pix Pâtisserie offers a delicate and refreshing moscato float ($9): two small scoops of raspberry sorbet in a large glass of intensely floral dessert wine. It is heavenly.

Not surprisingly, the floats at Cool Moon Ice Cream (1105 NW Johnson St., 224-2021) are all about the, well, ice cream. The Fred & Ginger ($5.50) is a heaping serving of sour lemon ice cream in a glass of Reed’s Ginger Brew, resulting in a refreshing cooler. The same goes at Whiskey Soda Lounge (3226 SE Division St., 232-1387), where the Whiskeysoda ($6) float blends an intense bourbon ice cream with cola and an Amarena cherry.

This being Portland, there are, of course, beer floats everywhere. The most common pairs Rogue’s chocolate stout with vanilla—Pix’s version ($6.75) comes with a lit sparkler—but you can have ice cream in your Anderson Valley stout at Legong Gelato Bar (8712 N Lombard St., 453-9025, $3.75), Tree Hugger Porter at Laurelwood Public House (5115 NE Sandy Blvd., 282-0622, and other locations, $4.25) or Black Bear stout at Alameda Brewhouse (4765 NE Fremont St., 460-9025, $3.75). Floats, after all, aren’t just for kids.