Dark and stormy ice cream sodas

It's 0 degrees outside, but you know me, I am craving an ice cream soda. Growing up I used to order vanilla bean ice cream sodas instead of cookie dough scoops covered in gummy bears. I liked how it was both creamy and fuzzy, a combination of textures that while contradictory just always seems to work.

It's been awhile since I had an ice cream soda, so I decided to take inspiration from one of my favorite cocktails, the dark and stormy. A dark and stormy is crazy simple, just ginger beer, rum and lime juice. Adding ice cream, well, that's just a slam dunk. It's an odd combination that works.

First you need to source ginger beer. It's not the easiest task depending on where you live, but I recommend Fever-Tree. It has that necessary ginger taste without the burn most ginger beers tend to have.

Now it's time to build our ice cream soda.

Start with liberal scoops of your favorite ice cream flavor. Ideally aim for vanilla bean, but I was feeling sassy + used butter pecan.

Next pour 1 tablespoon of rum over the ice cream. I prefer Puerto Rico white rum for this ice cream soda.

It wouldn't be a dark and stormy without a squeeze of lime, so squeeze a lime wedge over the glass.

Now top everything off with ~5 oz. of ginger beer.

It might bubble over, but I kind of dig when that happens. Let the bubbles pour over, but then gently dip a spoon into the glass + stir everything together to combine.

And there you have it! An unlikely, but no less delicious ice cream soda inspired by the dark and stormy. It may be cold outside so why not add some booze to warm it up?

If you combined an ice cream flavor with your favorite cocktail, what would you choose?