This is one cola, built two ways and finished three more. Jerk it and the Cream drop flavours the cola itself, with nothing on top. Make it dirty and a cream goes over the surface instead, on a plain cola or an already jerked one underneath it. Vanilla, cherry and caramel are the three creams to float, and ice changes how much cola fits under them, not which flavour goes in.
Jump to making it dirty, or straight to a cream: vanilla, cherry, caramel.
What you need
- 250 ml cola, chilled, or 200 ml if you're building over ice
- Jerk Soda Cream Flavouring Drops, as directed on the bottle, if the cola itself is going to be jerked (leave them out for a plain cola under the float)
- Ice, if you're building over it
- One cream to float: vanilla, cherry or caramel, below
How to make it
- Chill the glass. Without ice, one of about 300 ml, since a float needs somewhere to sit. With ice, or for the Caramel Cream either way, take the taller 400 ml glass instead.
- If you're building over ice, put the ice in first.
- Drop the Cream drops into the empty glass, or onto the ice, as directed on the bottle.
- Pour the cola from a height, straight down onto the drop, so the fall does the mixing rather than a spoon.
- Wait, a slow count of ten, until the head has properly dropped and a finger of headroom is clear. This is the step everyone skips, and it's the difference between a cream that sits on top and one the fizz punches straight through.
That's the drink on its own: a cola jerked with the Cream drop, one flavour top to bottom once the pour has mixed it in, nothing floated. Drink it here, or carry on and make it dirty.
Make it dirty
Floating a cream on the cola is a separate question from whether the cola itself carries a drop. Do both, and the result is a jerked cola with a second flavour riding on top of it. Leave the drop out of the cola and float the cream alone, and the result is a plain cola under a flavoured cap, nothing else underneath it. Both are real drinks. Know which one you built.
Either way, the float goes on the same way: once the fizz has settled, spoon or pour the cream onto the surface in one pass and leave it alone. Stirring it in turns a dirty soda back into a flavoured cola with cream mixed through it, which is a different drink from this one.
Vanilla Cream
- A heaped tablespoon, about 15 to 20 ml, of Cream syrup cream: 300 ml of cold cream at 35 per cent fat or better with 20 to 24 ml of syrup made from Jerk Soda Cream Flavouring Drops, shaken in a jar over ice until it thickens. That batch tops about three glasses; make it before you pour anything
The same drop that jerks the cola, whipped into cream and floated on top of it. It doubles the flavour already in the glass rather than adding a second one, which makes it the plainest build of the three and a safe place to start, rather than the house's first pick for this base. That's cherry, next.
Cherry Cream
- The same cream and the same method, with syrup made from Jerk Soda Cherry Flavouring Drops in place of Cream
Cherry is the house's first pick to float on this base, once it already carries the Cream drop. A fruit note riding on cream fat is the same relationship a cherry-topped fountain soda always ran on, the cream doing the carrying rather than the fruit standing on its own.
Caramel Cream
- 60 ml of Caramel syrup cream, made the same way with syrup from Jerk Soda Caramel Flavouring Drops. It pours rather than sits, so shake it a little less; mix it fully before the cola comes anywhere near it
Caramel is the house's second choice behind cherry for this base: by the same logic it should deepen a note the cola already carries rather than add a new one beside it. Mix the cream and the drop together first, off to the side: cola sits acidic enough to curdle a cream mixture that's left standing against it, so the two only ever meet at the pour. Floated whole, it caps the glass the same way the other two do. It is the biggest of the three floats, so over ice it wants the 400 ml glass: 60 ml of cream on 200 ml of cola will not fit a smaller one once the ice has taken its share.
Why it works
Cola's sharpness comes from its acid, not its fizz, and a drop of flavouring on its own never touches that: it adds an aroma and leaves the sharpness exactly where it found it. Cream is fat, and fat slows an acid down as it crosses the tongue, carrying whatever flavour is riding in it along the same path. Stirred through, that softening happens once, evenly, top to bottom. Floated, it only happens at the top: the cap is where the added flavour lives, and what comes up underneath it is the cola on its own, still the drink you poured.
Where it comes from
Floating something cold and dairy on a fizzy drink is older than any dropper bottle, and cola took its turn under a float the same way root beer and ginger ale did on the same fountain menu. It ran on a rack of syrup taps rather than a bottle, mixed to order by whoever was behind the counter.
Make it yours
- Over ice, cut the cola to 200 ml so it still fits under the float. The drop count drops to one for the same reason, less cola in the glass, not a different flavour.
- Skip the drop in the cola and float any of the three creams on a plain cola instead, for a flavoured cap on a plain drink rather than a second flavour on an already flavoured one.
- Marble the Caramel Cream through the pour in streaks instead of floating it whole.
Makes about 270 ml with a whipped cream on top, or about 310 ml with the poured Caramel Cream. Built over ice there is less in the glass, not more, because the cola is cut to 200 ml to leave the ice and the float their room.
Allergens and warnings. Contains: milk, from whichever cream you float. Contains caffeine, from the cola. Fresh dairy cream separates quickly once it is whipped or floated, so make it just before it goes on and drink the finished glass straight away, before the fizz starts working into the underside of the cap. Each Flavouring Drops bottle is the authority on what else is in it, not this page.