Cream soda

Cream soda is a sweet carbonated soft drink. Traditionally flavored with vanilla, a wide range of variations can also be found worldwide.

A recipe for cream soda—written by E.M. Sheldon and published in Michigan Farmer in 1852 at a farm in Linstead, Jamaica—called for water, cream of tartar, Epsom salts, sugar, tartaric acid, egg, and milk, to be mixed, then heated, and when cool mixed with water and a quarter teaspoonful of soda (sodium bicarbonate) to make an effervescent drink.

Alexander C. Howell, of Vienna, New Jersey, was granted a patent for "cream soda-water" on June 27, 1865. Howell's cream soda-water was made with sodium bicarbonate, water, sugar, egg whites, wheat flour, and "any of the usual flavoring materials—such as oil of lemon, extracts of vanilla, pine-apple, to suit the taste" before drinking, the cream soda water was mixed with water and an acid such as tartaric acid or citric acid. In Canada, James William Black of Berwick, Nova Scotia was granted a U.S. patent on December 8, 1885, and a Canadian patent on July 5, 1886, for "ice-cream soda". Black's ice-cream soda, which contained whipped egg whites, sugar, lime juice, lemons, citric acid, flavoring, and bicarbonate of soda, was a concentrated syrup that could be reconstituted into an effervescent beverage by adding ordinary ice water.

In the United States, cream soda is often vanilla-flavored and is either clear or colored a light golden brown in appearance; but red, pink, orange and blue are also relatively common color variants. In addition, in some places in the U.S. where the drink is made on location, especially in cafes, cream soda consists of soda water, vanilla syrup, and cream or half and half.

Popular brands include:

In Canada, cream soda is mostly red (except in Quebec and Newfoundland and Nova Scotia where it is sold clear) and tastes like grenadine. Some brands, such as Fanta, market a colorless version. Many brands have a long-lasting, foamy head.

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