Root beer is a dark, foamy soda that was traditionally made from the root bark of the sassafras tree. "Safrole" is part of the sassafras and was found to be a carcinogen, so most root beers don't use full sassafras today. A few use a safrole-free extract. Mostly though, it's natural and artificial flavoring to approximate the original taste these days. The difference between the old saspirilla and root beer is that saspirilla was made from the vine and root beer from the root of the same plant. No one drinks saspirilla these days.

My personal favorite root beer is Hank's. But, IBC is really good too.

Root beer floats are awesome! A couple of scoops of plain vanilla ice cream in root beer. Yum! 😋