Boston cooler

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Boston cooler is a drink typically composed of ginger ale and vanilla ice cream. Variations abound, however, with club soda, sherbet, rum, milk, sugar, or even coffee sometimes added or substituted for the key ingredients. The root beer float, a similar beverage made from vanilla ice cream and root beer is also sometimes called a Boston cooler.^{[citation needed]}

While the origins of the beverage are far from certain, some connect it with Boston Boulevard in Detroit, Michigan, the city in which Fred Sanders is credited with inventing the ice cream soda. It is known that by the 1880s the Boston cooler was being served in Detroit, made with the local Vernor's, an intense golden ginger ale, unlike the common modern dry ginger ales. Whatever the exact origins, the name almost certainly has no connection to Boston, Massachusetts, where the beverage is virtually unknown.

It can be found most often in the Detroit region's many Coney Island style restaurants, which are plentiful because of Detroit's Greektown district influence. National Coney Island is one of the few restaurant chains to list the Boston Cooler in their menu.

[edit] Sources

Gay, Cheri Y. (2001). Detroit Then and Now, p. 5. Thunder Bay Press. ISBN 1-57145-689-9.
Bulanda, George; Bak, Richard; and Ciavola, Michelle. The Way It Was: Glimpses of Detroit's History from the Pages of Hour Detroit Magazine, p. 8. Momentum Books. ISBN 1-879094-71-1.
Houston, Kay. "Of soda fountains and ice cream parlors." (Date not available.) The Detroit News.