Detroit’s own Vernors + Michigan’s Hudsonville vanilla ice cream = Boston Cooler

Just about everyone from the Detroit area has memories of growing up with Vernors—sipping it warm to soothe an upset stomach, or as an ice cream float unique to the Motor City, called a Boston Cooler. Go figure.

The beverage is a Detroit original worthy of a salute on March 13, aka 313 Day in Detroit, so called for the city’s area code that was established in 1947.

For the uninitiated, Vernors is a caramel colored carbonated beverage is in a glass of its own—more bubbles, more ginger flavor, sweeter—and did I mention the bubbles that leap from the glass to tickle your nose as you drink it, and tingle all the way down?

Woody the Vernors Gnome peers over a display of the ginger ale and rival Faygo pop

One local fan proclaimed on a Facebook page: “Even our soft drinks have an attitude.”

Though I’m suspicious of that FB poster’s origins (in these parts we consume “pop,” not “soft drinks,” anyone who’s tried Vernors knows that this ginger ale doesn’t have anything in common with the pale “dry” stuff used as a highball mixer.

It’s “Deliciously Different,” as Detroit pharmacist James Vernor claimed when he concocted the blend of 19 ingredients in an oak cask in 1866.

That’s right. Detroiters have been sipping Vernors since the Civil War era.

Legend has it that Vernor mixed a batch of the beverage in 1862, marched off to do battle, and on his return found a four-year-aged bubbly drink like no other. It became so popular that Vernor left his Woodward Avenue pharmacy to open a soda fountain shop and concentrate on making the beverage.

In honor of the pop’s 150th anniversary in 2016, the Vernor family donated to the Detroit Historical Museum a book containing the original recipe in James Vernor’s handwriting.

Vernors (somewhere along the line the apostrophe fell off) devotees drink it straight up, on the rocks, and warmed, to chase the chills. I’ve heard it goes well with Captain Morgan’s Rum. One cousin likes it with Jim Beam.

Check out the Vernors Ham recipe from Detroit’s own, dear departed Aretha Franklin (she made it for Christmas, but it’s great for Easter, too. Really, can that amount of brown sugar be right?!?). My friend Marcia sent me a copy of an old Vernors recipe booklet that includes Baked Ham a la Vernors—check it out below.

Vernors Bundt Cake has its fans, and I’ve made salmon with Vernors and substituted Vernors for beer in my version of onion rings with delish results.

Hey, the esteemed Porcupine Press, published in the Upper Peninsula media metropolis of Chatham, featured my Vernors onion ring recipe in an issue. Now that’s cred.

Then there’s the mystery of the Boston Cooler. The soda fountain treat consisting of Vernors poured over vanilla ice cream. For a while the company called it a Vernor’s Cooler and claimed it a Detroit original, but there’s a history to the float named after a city far from its currently acknowledged home; the company copyrighted Boston Cooler in the 1970s.

Michigan’s Hudsonville Ice Cream even made a limited edition Comeback Cooler flavor and fans could have a Boston Cooler in a cone. Delish!

Vernors is now a brand of the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Inc., and some say it’s not the Vernors of their youth. Memories and taste buds play tricks—but that old blast of Vernors’ bubbles to the nose, which has been toned down, is not something you forget.

A NATIONAL TREASURE?

Each March 13, Detroiters celebrate 313 Day, and several years ago Vernors fans tried to rally the troops to make it National Vernors Day. The effort seems to have fizzled out, but if you’re looking for more info about Vernors, click here for the scoop from Vernor’s Ginger Ale Collector’s Club, where you can see samples of members’ cool memorabilia. You can also buy the book about the pop by Keith Wunderlich, the man behind the website. He’s known as the largest collector of Vernor’s paraphernalia (and he uses the apostrophe).

(Un)Official holiday or not, buy a bottle or a case of Vernors and enjoy this taste of Detroit your way. With a side of attitude.

Vernors souvenirs at the museum shop of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn