Fast-food milkshakes to try before summer ends
The strawberry Frosty, available this summer at Wendy’s. Credit: Newsday/Scott Vogel
The year is more than half over and I’ve yet to see a single celebration marking the 100th anniversary of one of the greatest achievements in dessert beverage history, the all-American milkshake. I know, I can’t believe it either. When the McRib turned 40 in 2021, McDonald’s didn’t hesitate to commemorate that epic specimen of gloppiness, releasing an NFT in its honor. Earlier this year, Taco Bell saluted its Doritos Locos tacos, then just 10 years old, by introducing an entirely new menu item, Flamin’ Hot Cool Ranch Doritos Locos tacos. And last year, Burger King briefly offered its Whoppers for the unwhopping original price of 37 cents, and all because the iconic sandwich was turning … 64.
This egregious neglect of the milkshake centenary is a mystery, but I have my theories. For one thing, its 1922 creator, one Ivar “Pop” Coulson, had the misfortune to invent the milkshake while working as an employee at Walgreens, a company known not for its contributions to America’s collective sweet tooth — beyond those half-off candy sales after Easter — but for being the first major drugstore chain to put child-protective caps on its prescriptions. Still, if Coulson, who worked as a soda jerk in Chicago back when Walgreens had such things, hadn’t come up with the idea to add two scoops of vanilla ice cream to its malted milk, we might never have had milkshakes.
Secondly, if 1939 was a great year for the movies, 1922 was a landmark one for frozen treats, and I’m not just talking about the Klondike bar (William Isaly, Ohio). The same year, yet another American, Stephen Poplawski of Wisconsin, had the crazy idea of attaching a fast-spinning blade to the bottom of a glass container and hooking up the whole thing to a motor, thus creating the world’s first electric blender. This ingenious kitchen aid meant that henceforth Americans would be able to make shakes themselves, thus saving them much time and money on trips to Chicago and Walgreens, but it also meant that Coulson’s name would be lost to obscurity.
But I believe there’s a third, albeit more disturbing, reason why Americans are not celebrating the 100th anniversary of the milkshake: Their depressing decline in quality. Even the cheapest, corn syrupy, guar gummiest supermarket ice cream will yield a better product at home than almost anything you’ll get at the chains.
Want to test that theory? Here are three popular fast-food milkshakes, each either new or newly returned to their respective menus, although only for a limited time.
Churro Shake, Sonic
This concoction aims to be a new afternoon treat, but it’s inspired by breakfast, both the Spaniard morning ritual of dipping fried logs of dough in chocolate sauce and the American morning ritual of drinking the milk after a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. The beverage itself, beige in both color and flavor, tastes exactly like you think it does. The surprise comes in the topping — a tall mound of whipped cream is swirled up to a point (Note: Your Sonic technician’s proficiency with nitrous oxide propellant may vary) and then lightly dusted with sand, or rather cinnamon sugar. Lastly, the mound is topped with a cherry and stabbed in the side by a 2-inch churro, which immediately sinks into the cream, falling several stories before reaching the bottom of the cup. Frantic undersea search-and-rescue efforts with a straw will prove fruitless, and the churro will not be seen again unless or until all liquid has been drained, at which point the soggy and bloated fritter cannot be resuscitated.
Strawberry Frosty, Wendy’s
Some will argue that this summer-only flavor, a temporary replacement for vanilla so the latter can take a few months off for much-needed rest, does not belong on this list, as it is not a milkshake but a Frosty. But the two have almost the same ingredients, the only real difference being that at Wendy’s, suction through a straw cannot be accomplished until roughly two hours after a Frosty’s purchase. Then again, what makes a Frosty unique — relatively speaking, of course — is its stubborn insistence on not being drinkable. Once Frosty melts, one is left not with a pair of coal eyes and a carrot nose but a strawberry Nesquik manqué, although the Wendy’s concoction has a richer pinkness about it. There isn’t much else to recommend, although allegedly a more “dynamic flavor experience” can be achieved, according to the Wendy’s website, by dipping french fries into the strawberry Frosty. I will take that claim on faith.
Peach Milkshake, Chik-Fil-A
Our final entry, another summer-only affair, earns the profile in courage award for actually calling itself a milkshake, especially as it is composed not with ice cream but something CFA calls Icedream, which is dreamed not from cream but milk. The peach shake also has the distinction of being the only drink on this list to contain actual pieces of fruit.. Last month, a viral TikTok video showed how making 500 of them in a single shift left a young employee visibly traumatized, poultry potentates having demanded that the shake be “hand-spun the old-fashioned way” (i.e., an electric blender operated by hand). And while it might not deserve the breathless praise of ever-proliferating, would-be influencers, CFA’s peach shake is deservedly popular, in part because of what it isn’t. It doesn’t feel heavy, perhaps because of the decreased butterfat; it doesn’t taste artificial, perhaps because of the fruit pieces, small and scattered though they may be; and it doesn’t look artificial either, perhaps because they had the good sense not to dye it some ridiculous shade of orange. On the downside, it also doesn’t seem like the perfect way to wash down a pressure-cooked chicken sandwich, but that may be a personal preference.
The Churro Shake is available at all Island Sonic locations through Sept. 25 (sonicdrivein.com). Wendy’s Strawberry Frosty is available at all Island locations through the end of summer (wendys.com). The peach milkshake at Chick-fil-A is at all Island locations while supplies last (chick-fil-a.com).
Newsday writer and restaurant critic Scott Vogel aims for a refreshing, gimlet-eyed take on the Long Island food scene, often while drinking a refreshing gimlet.
