National Ice Cream Soda Day

It’s National Ice Cream Soda Day. To celebrate, I planned to share a New York egg cream recipe that I learned to make during my brief tenure at Manny’s Place Deli, in Baltimore. Egg Creams contain neither eggs nor cream. Egg cream soda is made with milk, seltzer, and chocolate syrup. I quickly learned in my research stage that an egg cream is not an ice cream soda, and so I began my journey.

Lesson 1: An Egg Cream IS NOT an ice cream soda.

Your typical ice cream/soda concoction might be similar to a root beer float. A scoop of vanilla ice cream, and a can of sweet, syrup-y soda make this classic treat. An ice cream soda is a little different though, but just as delicious. For the record, ice cream soda made with root beer is called a root beer float.

What is an Ice Cream Soda?

National Ice Cream Soda Day had me learning new things. It’s always nice to learn new things. An ice cream soda is a bit of a combination between an egg cream and a float. Here I was, thinking that anything with a bubbly drink and ice cream was the same thing!

An ice cream soda is a chilled beverage that includes ice cream, a soft drink or a combination of flavored syrup and soda water.

When I was a kid we would go to Woolworths or Reads and sit at the “soda counter” and watch the “soda jerk” make our old-fashioned afternoon treat. It was typically on a 200 degree day in Baltmore where nothing else could possibly satisfy our combination of thirst and near heat-stroke.

The hero of our syrup in this ice cream soda on National Ice Cream Soda Day is, drumroll please, honey! And, the ice cream is even something special. We’ve teamed up with our friends over in Easton in a new ice cream shop that is serving up honey ice cream made with our Spring Honey.

How to Make an Ice Cream Soda

First, you’ll want to gather your ingredients, you’ll need:

• Waxing Kara Honey
• Warm water
• Honey ice cream
• Carbonated unflavored soda water 
• Lavender sprigs, fresh picked

It takes only a few minutes

• Start with a tall soda glass
• Fill the bottom with the honey syrup made with equal parts of our Eastern Shore Honey and warm water. The syrup will mix easily with the soda.
• Add about 2 inches of unflavored carbonated soda and mix the syrup with the carbonated water.
• Add several scoops of honey ice cream in the tall glass.
• Fill the balance of the tall glass with unflavored carbonated soda until the glass is filled and the resulting foam rises above the top of the glass.
• Garnish with sprigs of fresh picked lavender.

Make our Honey Soda Even Better

Even simple sweets like this can be customized! Feel free to play with your food, and have fun with this recipe. Here’s our favorite suggestions:

• Use different artisanal honey each time you make this soda
• Switch out the ice cream for plain old vanilla, or maybe even black raspberry
• Use dairy-free ice cream. Coconut milk ice cream is delicious.
• Add cocoa nibs and a drizzle of honey over top
• Top with toasted coconut and chopped pecans