Certain flavors take you back to your childhood, and for me, one of them is the root beer float.
Every time I visited my grandmother, she would let me make a root beer soda. I remember standing on a chair to get the ice cream out of the freezer because I was too short to reach it. After taking the ice cream out and pouring it into a tall soda glass, she would open the container so I could pour it over the ice cream. I would sit at her kitchen table and enjoy.
It was a sweet treat that I savored. My mother never bought soda unless there was a party, so root beer soda was a no-no as a snack.
There's a new treat at ALDI that reminds me of those sweet afternoons at my grandmother's house: Barq's vanilla root beer ice cream floats.
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What I Love About Barq's Root Beer and Vanilla Ice Cream Floats
This new frozen treat costs $3.99 for an eight-pack of 3-ounce servings of root beer and vanilla. When I opened the cone-shaped tube, the aroma of sweet sassafras mixed with vanilla hit my nose, transporting me straight to my grandmother's house. And it tastes as good as it smells: just like a root beer float when the root beer froths, freezes, and mixes with the ice cream to form a sweet slush of a treat.
I'm not the only one who loves the new frozen floats. My son Quinn and his gang of gym buddies love them, too. When they get together after practice, play volleyball in the backyard, or ride their bikes to the creek, they come back sweaty, thirsty, and hungry, and a tube or two of this delicious frozen treat fills them up like nothing else.
“This is better than regular root beer,” my son told me. His friend Jack said, “This is good,” saying the word for a few seconds.
Not only is this treat delicious, but because it comes in a squeezable individual package, it's also super easy to transport and a lot less messy than many other frozen treats. Throw a few in a cooler and you can take them to the lake, beach, park, or anywhere you're looking for summer fun.
And maybe, if you're like me, it will bring back some summer memories too.
