Top Off Your Next Glass Of Red Wine With A Scoop Of Ice Cream And Taste The Magic

While you can make a float with other sodas besides root beer, you don't really need soda at all. Topping off a glass of red wine with a scoop of ice cream (or vice versa) might sound a little unconventional, or it might sound like just the adventure your glass of vino needs. A wine float, which is what we're really talking about, is more than an adult version of an ice cream float. It completely changes your mouth's interaction with the wine and your entire drinking experience. Drop a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a glass of sparkling red, and the two react in a magical way, causing the wine to fizz, the ice cream to melt, and the whole thing to become creamy and colorful.  

This drink that tastes like dessert in a glass has been making the rounds on social media, and like the red wine with canned condensed milk trend, it's surprisingly good. When acidic wine and dairy-rich ice cream meet, you might expect it to curdle, but because the ice cream is frozen, the rate at which it denatures and becomes clumpy is significantly slower than when dairy is heated. As the ice cream melts, it blends with the wine and turns creamy. Upon first reaching your lips, you will feel like you are drinking wine and eating ice cream, but then, as this frozen dessert coats your mouth, the aftertaste hits. It's creamy, sweet, and greater than the sum of its parts.

There's a reason that your taste buds feel a bit of gustatory fireworks when they experience the aftertaste of ice cream and wine. Ice cream that is high in fat is going to give you delayed gratification and cause the taste to linger. This is because fat holds flavors longer. This brings us to our first tip: Don't skimp on your ice cream. You want full fat. This is what will make your wine become thick and lush as it melts.

You can use a sweet red wine or rose to make your float — merlot, pinot noir, Beaujolais, sparkling, or sweet red blend are all good choices, but with a couple of caveats. Choose a mild to sweet bottle, and it's best if you like the type of wine you enjoy sipping. You should also avoid dry wines. They tend to have bitter notes that do not work well with sweet ice cream.

What flavor of ice cream should you use? Vanilla is a blank canvas and will actually amplify the notes of just about any wine you choose with its floral creaminess. Strawberry, raspberry, and chocolate ice cream will complement those sweet and fruity bottlings, giving you black forest cake vibes. If you don't like red wine, then Champagne or prosecco combined with orange sherbet and vanilla ice cream is a good option and will have you thinking of those orange creamsicles from your youth.