Food: Big Red Float

I received something very cool in the mail yesterday. Big Red soda. And not just the regular type (though there was some of that, too), but a box of something labeled Big Red Float.

That unmarked silver can is the Float.

I couldn't help it; I opened one right away and poured it over some ice. And I'll be damned if it didn't taste almost exactly like Big Red poured over vanilla ice cream. This drink tastes like a Big Red float.

I've had the Dr Pepper Vanilla Float, and it didn't win me, despite my love for DP. Big Red, however, got it right. This drink tastes just like what it's supposed to be and without any weird aftertaste (well, not any weirder than any soda aftertaste anyway).

Whether or not people who don't like Big Red will like this? No idea. The chief criticism I've heard of Big Red is that it's too sweet and/or tastes too much like bubble gum (rather than cream soda). But the Big Red Float is mostly a vanilla ice cream flavor with the underlying taste of Big Red. It's the vanilla that hits first and foremost. So maybe people who aren't as fond of Big Red will tolerate the Float version.

The pros to drinking Float rather than making an actual float? No melting ice cream everywhere. No mucky glasses to clean (assuming you drink from the can, but be sure to chill it first since this absolutely should be served cold). None of that inconvenient trying to get the last of the ice cream up a straw. And I think the Float soda would actually make a great slush, too, if you were to freeze some. Might have to try it . . .

Our ability to find Big Red regularly out here on the West Coast has been spotty at best. Online searches give a list of places in the area I should be able to buy it, but the hunt often proves fruitless. So either there are a lot of Big Red drinkers stocking up or those stores aren't stocking it as much as the Internet thinks they are. I sure would love it if a few would make it a point to keep Big Red available—and Big Red Float, too, if and when it hits the market.