Every year on National Root Beer Float Day, Americans celebrate the frothy combination of root beer and vanilla ice cream — a summertime favorite whose story begins centuries before the first scoop ever hit the soda.People have been making drinks similar to root beer by fermenting various herbs and roots with sugar since at least the 16th century, Ken Albala, professor of history at the University of the Pacific in California and creator of the "Forgotten Foods" lecture series, told Fox News Digital.When European settlers arrived in the New World, they discovered plants considered to be very medicinal, including sassafras, which was prized as an antidote to syphilis and experienced a craze in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Albala said.CENTURY-OLD ITALIAN ICE RECIPE IS CREATING CHILDHOOD MEMORIES FOR A WHOLE NEW GENERATIONEarly colonial root beer was typically made by steeping sassafras root bark with other herbs and barks, adding sugar and allowing the mixture to ferment before bottling it, Albala said.It was called "beer" because it was slightly alcoholic — generally 2% or less.A compound in sassafras oil — safrole — was deemed to be carcinogenic, and the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned it as a food additive in the 1960s, according to ScienceDirect.Modern root beer typically uses safrole-free sassafras extracts, along with wintergreen and other natural or artificial flavorings that replicate the original taste, according to Allrecipes.National Root Beer Float Day celebrates the union of the distinctive soda flavor and vanilla ice cream.
(iStock)The history of the root beer float is a little less clear. One legend has it that Frank J.Wisner, a brewer in Cripple Creek, Colorado, was inspired to invent the beverage in 1893 while gazing out at Cow Mountain.TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ"Its snow-covered peak above darkened slopes inspires him," Colorado Public Radio reported.
"He drops a scoop of vanilla ice cream into ...