Make A Root Beer Float Or A Black Cow: It’s National Root Beer Float Day
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Updated August 2026 June 10th is National Black Cow Day. National Root Beer Float Day is August 6th. Two holidays for the same sweet treat, and several variations: Root beer floats, once a highlight of soda fountain culture, have fallen off the menu in many places. Do your bit for American nostalgia and make one today: They’re delicious! > Recipes: Black Cow and Root Beer Float. > Recipe: Black Cow #2 with coffee liqueur. > Spirits to add to your float. > The history of the Root Beer Float and The Black Cow. > How the Black Cow got its name. Elsewhere on The Nibble: > The year’s 9+ ice cream drink holidays. > The year’s 50+ ice cream holidays. > The year’s 6 ice cream sundae holidays. > The year’s 24 non-alcoholic beverage holidays, including soft drinks and juices. > The different types of frozen desserts: a photo glossary. > All the August food holidays. This recipe can be made sugar-free (we do it all the time) with diet root beer and no-sugar-added ice cream (we prefer Breyers Smooth & Dreamy vanilla). We leave out the chocolate syrup because we haven’t yet found a good one that’s sugar-free. Garnishing the float with whipped cream and a cherry is showy, but not essential to the flavor of the float. We generally leave it off so we can get straight to the ice cream. You can buy or make brandied cherries, which taste a whole lot better (to adults) than bottled maraschino cherries from the grocer. If you want to use a maraschino cherry, buy the best, all-natural cherries from Tillen Farms. Ingredients Per Serving 1. Scoop ice cream into a tall glass. 2. Slowly pour root beer over ice cream, being careful not to let it foam up over the side of the glass. 3. Garnish with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry—or with a flute cookie, as in photo #1. Serve with a straw and a long spoon for the ice cream. Variation: Some establishments serve a “Black Cow” as a root beer milkshake instead of a root beer float. It’s blended like a milkshake but with root beer instead of milk. The original cocktail recipe tastes like a black cow, but has no ice cream. Our recommendation: Add the ice cream for an alcoholic float. You can make your Cow cocktail of choice, i.e., root beer or cola. 1. COMBINE the ingredients and pour over ice in a rocks glass. If adding ice cream, use a highball glass. You can use hard spirits or liqueurs, with the latter adding additional layers of flavor. Use just enough alcohol to give it a kick without overwhelming the nostalgic flavor of the original root beer float. |
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 [7] All you need for this classic treat (photo © The Nibble). THE HISTORY OF THE BLACK COW & THE ROOT BEER FLOAT Pharmacist Charles Hires introduced commercial root beer to the public in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. It was a hit, and other beverage companies went into root beer production. The Black Cow dates to an August night in 1893 in a bustling mining town. The first root beer float, originally called the “Black Cow Mountain,” was created on August 19, 1893, by Frank J. Wisner in Cripple Creek, Colorado, owner of the Cripple Creek Cow Mountain Gold Mining Company. He also owned a tavern, where he produced carbonated soda waters, popular with adults and children alike. As the story goes, Wisner wanted to create a special drink for the local children. One night, he added a scoop of vanilla ice cream to his glass of root beer. The float was an instant hit and was christened “Black Cow” by the children, for the dark color of the root beer and Wisner’s reference to Cow Mountain. While the original Black Cow was made with vanilla ice cream and root beer, in other regions and in later usage, Black Cow became the term to distinguish the substitution of chocolate ice cream. The ice cream float was invented by Robert M. Green in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1874 during the Franklin Institute’s semicentennial celebration. The story is that, on a particularly hot day, Green ran out of ice for the flavored drinks he was selling and instead used vanilla ice cream from a neighboring vendor, thus inventing the new drink. His own account, published in Soda Fountain magazine in 1910, states that while operating a soda fountain at the celebration, he wanted to create a new treat to attract customers away from another vendor who had a larger, fancier soda fountain. After some experimentation, he decided to combine ice cream and flavored soda. During the celebration, he sold vanilla ice cream with soda and a choice of 16 flavored syrups. Presumably, one of them was root beer! Samuel Wisner didn’t begin to serve them for another 19 years. CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM. |
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