Verve Coffee Roasters has been serving up inventive drinks for well over a decade. Their new location in Manhattan Beach, California offers the pour-overs, espresso, cafe au lait, and Nitro Flash Brew Verve fans expect, but then, well—things get a little wild. Verve is kicking it up a notch, offering a stunning and tastebud-boggling offering unlike anything we’ve quite seen before: The Coconut Sugar Vanilla Draft Latte Float with Housemade Oat Milk Softserve.
Let’s unpeel that a bit. Coconut sugar, so roasty and distinctive. Vanilla, a flavor profile that’s somehow become a synonym for “boring” when in fact the wonders it contains are anything but, with a global cultivation story so incredibly fascinating it rivals even coffee. And as for a latte float made with housemade oat milk soft serve? Well—we just had to learn more.
There’s one truth in this life that we’ve found to be immutable, and that is this: good floats need good ice cream. And for this good float, Verve uses its very own house made oat milk soft serve (a smooth, semi-solid ice cream dispensed from a machine). Soft serve flavors are available in vanilla, chocolate, and that most utterly classic of all soft serve flavors, the much-loved swirl (pictured above).
But what, exactly, is in an oat milk soft serve? And how long was this recipe in development?
“Our Head Chef at the Arts District Verve location, Josh Merer, and I worked on perfecting the soft serve recipe over a six-month period,” says Alexis Bolter, head of retail at Verve. “We tried recipes with coconut milk, rice milk, and eventually landed on oatmilk. Oatmilk is the most neutral base we found. The fat content of the oatmilk mimics the fat content in milk which helps provide a creamy texture.”
Bolter continues: “We have two flavors, vanilla bean and Verve mocha, and both flavors are vegan. The vanilla bean tastes like a classic vanilla soft serve—you won’t miss the dairy at all! The Verve mocha is based on our hot mocha we serve in the cafe. For our mocha soft serve use our own Buena Vista Instant Coffee and Ghirardelli Cocoa Powder which helps create the perfect balance of coffee and sweetness. If you can’t decide which one to try, both flavors are available in a swirl which is our biggest hit!”
As well it should be: swirled soft serve is one of the finest treats known to man. And when paired up with a draft latte float, or as the base to a stunning affogato, well—it might be tough to beat. The Coconut Sugar Vanilla Draft Latte Float with Housemade Oat Milk Softserve is available now at Verve’s Manhattan Beach location, and sells for just $6.50, a small price to pay for a sip of heaven. For more information visit Verve’s official website and follow Verve Coffee Roasters on Instagram.
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Disclosure: Verve Coffee Roasters is an advertising partner on Sprudge Media Network.
