Way back as far as I can remember, hot summer days were accompanied by floats. Fizzy soda (usually root beer) and vanilla ice cream. It was a special treat, cold, fizzy, foamy, and full of creamy goodness. So, of course the Drinkinator, upon learning that the folks at Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. had refused to scrimp on the sugar, and fueled by happy childhood memories, had to try it.
The ingredient list for this stuff is impressive. All-Natural meets Chemistry 101: “Filtered Carbonated Water, Sugar, Skim Milk, and 2% or less of the following: Cream, Pectin, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Phosphoric Acid, Propylene Glycol Alginate, Modified Corn Starch, Acacia Gum, Ester Gum, Yellow 6, Red 40, Nitrous Oxide (Creates Foam)
Nitrous Oxide! There’s something you don’t see in a beverage every day.
Ol’ Dave is quickly losing any sense of nostalgia just reading the label.
“But Dave,” I hear you say, “How does it taste?”
Well, alas folks, it tastes not so much like the ice cream floats of my memory, but more like the dregs of the ice cream floats of my memory. When the float gets down to the bottom, and the ice cream is melted, and the soda’s gone all flat. That’s what this tastes like. The nitrous (a cheap trick) makes it foam, breifly, but even this seems to be hit or miss. My first bottle (I bought a four-pack) foamed nicely, becoming nearly all foamy head, with only a little liquid in the bottom, before settling down. The second was pure flatness, no fizz, despite the carbonation. As my previous review of Hansen’s attests, The Drinkinator wants fizz. Lack of fizz is a deal killer.
Despite this, the use of real milk, real cream, at least some semblence of real orange flavor, and of course sugar will satisfy some people. The Drinkinator, however, is tougher to please. It is not enough to emulate, imitate, copy, clone, or otherwise simply pay homage to a flavor. I would much rather take a scoop of real vanilla ice cream or two, place it in a tall glass, and pour an ice cold bottle of premium orange soda (made with real cane sugar) over the top. This is the real deal, not some mass-market substitute because I supposedly don’t have time to scoop ice cream from the box.
When all is said and done, this is a product that exists to say “you are too lazy to pick up an ice cream scoop”. Setting aside that this is an insult to beverage drinkers, one would at least expect that they get the once facet of the drink which counts right.
Alas, the Sunkist Float misses that mark. At least the bottle looks nice.