Lavender Blackberry Italian Cream Soda with Oat Milk

We are sharing a Willa’s kitchen twist on the popular summer drink, Italian Cream Soda. This lavender blackberry cream soda with Willa’s Oat Milk is a recipe from our intern, Anna! It’s naturally sweetened with an easy homemade lavender simple syrup. Bubbly, creamy, and sweet, it’s the perfect drink for warm days ahead.

First, a clean, minimally processed, homemade lavender simple syrup

The first thing you will want to prep is the lavender syrup. Flavored syrup is surprisingly easy to make at home. A lot of flavored syrups have artificial ingredients, preservatives and even corn syrup. But never fear! Anna showed us how to make our own.

It can even be made with coconut sugar (one of our favorites), which is great if you are avoiding cane sugar. We also love maple sugar because its highly sustainable, has antioxidants and much like coconut sugar has a lower G.I., which means less sugar spike and crash!

This syrup recipe makes enough for you to prep it ahead of time and keep it in your kitchen for lots of summer drinks. Anna loves to use this syrup in iced and hot oat milk lattes! 

If you'd rather skip the homemade syrup, we reccomend Sonoma Syrup Co.'s Lavender Infused Simple Syrup! They create small batch syrups with the highest quality, naturally derived flavors.

You get to decide how lavender forward you want the flavor to be...

Anna steeps the syrup for an hour because she enjoys a stronger lavender flavor. If you are weary of the taste, try steeping for only 30 minutes. Be sure to use a fine-mesh strainer to remove the lavender flowers from the syrup. 

Oat Milk + soda = the ultimate summer drink pairing

Oat milk is an ideal addition for creamy summer drinks because it’s refreshing instead of heavy like dairy milk. A typical Italian cream soda (also known as a French soda) is made up of soda, flavored syrup, and half-and-half. As a lactose-intolerant barista, Anna wanted to try a cleaner and dairy-free version. Frozen blackberries are used to add more flavor and color without artificial coloring. Not only is it pretty, the berries are also a sweet and tasty snack. And it is equally delicious with frozen blueberries! Both berries are a lovely complement to the aromatic lavender flavor.  

Try our other oat milk summer drinks like this lemon meringue cocktail and boozy mocha milkshake! 

Don’t miss our latest blog post about why food waste matters.