I used to be a boozy girl. Given a choice, I would choose the cocktail. My mother tells a story of me going around a party during my first New Year’s Eve on this earth and dipping my pacifier in everyone’s champagne glass, then passed out on the floor shortly afterward. (I have to admit that (1) this would have grossed me out had I been one of the adults present, and (2) it was not the last time I passed out on someone else’s floor).

Then I met my husband. I think the man has had a total of five alcoholic drinks since I met him in 1998—and three of those were beer, which hardly counted in my book. So my own habits changed, to some degree. More Coke, less Jack. More milkshake, less liqueur.

Naturally, this got me to thinking about ice cream drinks. My dad used to make milkshakes at home using vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup. He also made a variation on this with club soda instead of milk—which I liked more, but I haven’t had one in decades.

When we lived in Illinois, there were two places for milkshakes: Whitey’s or Lagomarcino’s. (There was also a place called Country Style, but we were not a soft-serve family, so that one got short shrift.) Both places are still in operation, which makes me happy. Whitey’s was more avant garde, with Butterfinger and Oreo malts so thick you needed an ax before you could use a spoon. Lago’s was a straight-up old-timey soda fountain place where they’d come to your tiny marble-topped table and give you your shake in a glass with the extra in the metal blender cup.

When I was in sixth grade, we moved to Florida, where I attended a class party and someone’s mom made a punch out of lime sherbet and ginger ale, which was a whole other kind of amazing. I’d had root beer floats before, but it had never occurred to me that you could branch out from that. I spent a summer exploring all kinds of variations—some better than others. I think my favorite was raspberry sherbet and 7-Up.

In high school, it was Dairy Queen chocolate malts with extra malt powder at least once a week.

Then everyone started using chocolate ice cream to make these drinks, and the whole dynamic changed. They just doesn’t taste as good to me as when vanilla ice cream was the go-to base. Does anyone else feel this way?

But I will say that back in my college days, the Cheesecake Factory made some amazing boozy milkshakes. My favorite was the French Kiss, which to my recollection was a chocolate milkshake with champagne, Chambord, and chocolate liqueur. I was devastated when they took it off the menu.

I don’t really have an ice cream drink of choice these days. Summer is coming. Maybe it’s time to find one.