Boston cooler

A Boston cooler is a drink typically composed of ginger ale and vanilla ice cream. Variations abound, however, with club soda, sherbet, rum, milk, sugar, or even coffee sometimes added or substituted for the key ingredients. The beverage is similar to a root beer float.

While the origins of the beverage are far from certain, some connect it with Boston Boulevard in Detroit, Michigan, the city in which Fred Sanders is often credited with inventing the ice cream soda. It is known that by the 1880s the Boston cooler was being served in Detroit, made with Vernor's, an intense golden ginger ale. Whatever the exact origins, the name almost certainly has no connection to Boston, Massachusetts, where the beverage is virtually unknown.

Sources

• Cheri Y. Gay, Detroit Then and Now [Thunder Bay Press, 2001], p. 5. ISBN 1571456899.
• George Bulanda, Richard Bak, Michelle Ciavola, The Way It Was: Glimpses of Detroit's History from the Pages of Hour Detroit Magazine [Momentum Books, 2004], p. 8. ISBN 1879094711.
• Kay Houston, "Of soda fountains and ice cream parlors," the Detroit News (available here).