Homemade Root Beer Floats
(National Root Beer Float Day)

Today is "National Root Beer Float Day" To honor this most awesome celebration, I decided to try my hand at Homemade Root Beer and make Root Beer Floats. I happened to be in Walmart in the baking isle, no surprise there. I was looking at all the wonderful extracts on the shelf and came across root beer extract. 

Right on the back of the box is a recipe for homemade root beer. I knew I had to try it, I wanted to see if it tasted just like the real deal. You see I am a Root Beer Lover!! I remember growing up my mom and dad used to take us kids to A&W Root beer and we would get burgers and floats. 

We had such a good time. I always giggled at the names of the burgers. The papa burger, the mama burger and the baby burger! I used to ask every time for a bigger burger but always ended up with a baby burger. My mom knew I couldn't eat anything bigger than that. Oh well, it never hurts to ask does it.

I don't know why I was so surprised at how great the homemade root beer tasted. I guess it was because I actually made it. I was so excited that it tasted just like the real deal. I know a liter of store bought root beer is probably less than $1.50, but there is just something about making it yourself that makes it that much better. I think I will try and make a root beer float cake next, I hear they are quite tasty as well.


These are the ingredients you will need: sugar, root beer extract, water, seltzer water and vanilla ice cream.


ready to measure out the root beer extract.


Bring water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Stir in sugar and



mix until dissolved.



add root beer concentrate; stir until well mixed. Refrigerate until ready to serve.



Slowly pour soda into root beer mixture until well blended. I used seltzer. Makes 6 cups.





Homemade Root Beer

1 1/2 - cups water
3/4 - cup sugar
1 1/2 - teaspoons root beer concentrate
1 - bottle (1 liter size) cold soda water, seltzer or club soda

Bring water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Stir in sugar until dissolved. Add concentrate; stir until well mixed. Refrigerate until ready to serve. 

Slowly pour soda into root beer mixture until well blended. I used seltzer. Makes 6 cups. To make Root Beer Floats, place scoops of ice cream in tall glasses. 

Slowly pour the homemade root beer over homemade or store bought ice cream and serve.


27 comments

Anonymous said…
What a fun idea! I wanna try it too. My kids would love that. :)
FoodieCrystal said…
I've never seen a Root Beer Recipe that uses a soda before. I've seen using yeast (don't recommend) and using Dry Ice to carbonate (my idea of perfect root beer, we use to have it at our HUGE family reunion every year growing up).

This looks yummy, I am now craving a root beer float! I think I will have to go get one today.
Tina Butler said…
The root beer extract recipe is slap yourself easy. My kids loved it. I never knew you could make it with a extract until i got into the baking isle and started nosing around. The ice cream in my picture was melting fast LMBO gotta love the scorching Texas Heat!! Crystal I have never heard of that way, interesting. Michelle your kids will love it, give it a try.
Tami said…
What a great idea! My kids and I love root beer floats (hubby doesn't like root beer, his loss). Root beer floats were one of the activities on our summer fun list this summer. I will have to try this recipe with them.
What a great recipe Tina. Just got back from Dallas where I found out that my son has been making his own soda (tastes like coke) for some time now. Sure saves him a lot of money. I'm going to pass this rrecipe along to him Thanks neighbor.
Susan said…
That sounds great! Does it have that old taste? Like the root beer A&W use to store in wooden barrels?

Susan
Love root beer floats here too! I don't venture into the homemade stuff though - just good old Barq's which originated right here where I live, in the bottle, of course! I miss the old A&W drive in though.

Great recipe!!
Sonya said…
I made this the other day..well just the root beer concentrate and it was so good..way better than what you buy in the store.

Root Beer floats are for sure in our future!
Krystal said…
Like the other Crystal, I use dry ice to carbonate it. It makes for an awesome halloween drink, since it bubbles. But your way seems a lot easier than dealing with dry ice
Denise said…
That looks so easy and fun to do... unfortunately I don't like root beer! I grew up in England and we have a certain ointment there for scraped knees (it's called Germaline) that smells just like your rootbeer, every time I take a sip I think of my bloody scuffed knees as a kid :-/
We make root beer often but with a different recipe and it has to sit in a cold dark closet for up to a week. I'm head to try this right now.
Amber said…
Wow..you make it look so easy..and yummy!
We have a friend of the family and their last name is ROOT so they used to make their own root beer..it was good!
Stephanie said…
Mmmm! We made root beer for National Root Beer Float Day last year, and it was so yummy! I'm glad you posted this and reminded me about today, I decided to make a root beer float cake to celebrate! I love national food holidays. :-)
Sonya said…
Ok I've gotta try it. It's been ages since I've had a root beer float. Thanks for the wonderful idea. I love your awesome blog btw!
Tina Butler said…
Stephanie lmk how the cake turns out. I have a few recipes I saw but havent tried them for the cake.
Heidi said…
Wow, I didn't know it was that easy to make your own. That melting icecream looks so good! YUM YUM YUM! You always have such great ideas :)
Tina Butler said…
Awee Heidi thanks for being so nice. you know I heart your!!! your one of my favorite blogging buddies.
Lara said…
I remember making homemade root beer as a child and now I'm thinking it's time to try it with my kids. Thanks for a great idea!
Sheila said…
I remember going to the A&W for burgers and floats too--only I got just a mug of root beer because I don't like the texture of floats. Any way, for many years we would go to Lake Charles to get gallon jugs of root beer every Friday night. I'm not sure why we didn't get it at the local A&W unless they didn't sell the gallon jugs. After a while, that stopped and we started buying the extract at the store to make our own but it wasn't quite as good as the stuff we bought from A&W. Thanks for the memories.
I made your root beer recipe yesterday. Turned out good. Check it out.
Sherry said…
thank you for stopping by my blog, i read you blog on a regular basis and truly enjoy all of the recipes and have used many of them. thank you for the hugs,i sure need them right now.
Jennifer said…
YUMMY I love it!
Stefanie said…
What a cool idea - I've never even heard of root beer extract! My husband loves root beer - I might need to give this a try!
That recipe sounds so easy! I will have to try it :)
Live.Love.Eat said…
I think it's awesome you made this from scratch and it looks delicious in that jar!!!!!! I would use seltzer too. My grandma always made us vanilla egg creams with seltzer. It's just the seltzer, vanilla syrup and milk.
Angela said…
I just came across your recipe in my research for family fun Pioneer Day activities.
Thanks!
Catherine said…
Dear Tina, I love this idea...It is a great summer treat for the family. Blessings to you my dear, your friend, Catherine xo