Are you ready to return to Gilead? And for the next season of The Handmaid’s Tale?
That’s a little gallows humor as we head into the fifth season of the Hulu show, and its first in a post-Roe world. It’s inevitable that this season will hit different.
[Spoilers ahead, but you knew that because you’re watching the trailer for the fifth season of a show.]
At the end of the fourth season, Fred (Joseph Fiennes) went from “I’m a man! I have rights!” to having no skull to keep his brains inside. It shifted the entire premise of the show from one where June (Elisabeth Moss) wanted to escape to safety and family reunions in Canada. Now, she’s chosen to dig two graves, and the trailer for the fifth season promises that Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski) won’t let the husband she apathetically deigns to Zoom with die in vain. June is an insult to her way of life — looking perfect as a family unit on the outside while rotting from within. June is also an existential threat to Gilead itself because she’s fighting back, and if there’s one thing the bullying, fascist bastards dislike, it’s people who fight back.
Even in this brief glimpse, the acting work from Moss and Strahovski looks outstanding. It fell off the Emmy watchlist last year, but it might be undeniable this time around.
The fifth season of The Handmaid’s Tale hits Hulu September 14th, topical as ever.
Trader Joe’s is well-known for branding its own products — frozen pizzas, wine, beer, and, yes, whiskey are all in play. They’re pretty damn good at it too, while also being famous for keeping prices fairly low. Since the prices on the various Trader Joe’s whiskeys also fall into that “affordable” category, one we love so much (sososomuch), I knew it was time to taste a few to see how they measure up in the grand pantheon of cheap/affordable brown juice.
I headed out to my local Trader Joe’s and found a liquor aisle with a surprisingly good selection of bourbon at decent prices. There was also a fair amount of Scotch whisky on the shelf with a few other regions represented. It wasn’t as vast as a good liquor store, but it was a very solid selection of booze. I decided to grab three bottles from three regions: Kentucky, Tennessee, and Scotland. I figured this was a good entry-point to the world of Trader Joe’s branded whiskey.
Bottles in play for this tasting are:
Trader Joe’s Kentucky Bourbon Straight Whiskey
Trader Joe’s Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky Aged 8 Years
Tennessee Sour Mash Bourbon Whiskey
Trader Joe’s whiskeys — like most in-store branded hooch — are contract bottled and labeled by an independent bottler. Generally speaking, the bottler sources barrels or ready-to-bottle whisk(e)y from each region. They then finish the whiskey, if needed, in-house, bottle it, label it, and ship it out to Trader Joe’s warehouses. Point being: Trader Joe’s is not making this whiskey.
As for the ranking/tasting, this is based on taste alone. I tasted knowing what the bottles are. There’s no point in blindly tasting three whiskeys from three regions that are extremely obvious from the nose. That said, these three bottles were massively divergent. So the ranking was super obvious once I dug in. Let’s dive right in and see which bottle of TJ’s whiskey is worth your time (and money).
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of The Last Six Months
This whiskey is made in Tennessee (from an unnamed distiller) with the famed “Lincoln County Process” where the hot juice off the still is filtered through sugar maple charcoal before going into the barrel. The juice is then aged for … *grimace* … six months.
For context, the cheapest whiskey is usually aged at least two years with four to six years being closer to the norm. Those sourced barrels are then sent to a bottler in Texas where it’s proofed all the way down (likely to hide that minimal aging and the taste) before bottling for Trader Joe’s.
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
The nose is lawn grass and white chalk with a good dose of ethanol (basically vodka) and diacetyl (fake popcorn butter) — it’s kind of like a cheap hand sanitizer. The palate is very watery with a vanilla chalk edge and more of that cheap hand sanitizer with maybe a hint of caramel and cherry lurking somewhere under all that water and ethanol.
This is offensive.
Bottom Line:
This is the first whiskey I’ve ever tasted that kind of made me mad. If I were from Tennessee, I’d be pretty pissed off. This isn’t just “bad but you can shoot it.” It’s “pour this shit down the drain because it’s besmirching the good name of Tennessee whiskey.” Seriously, this is the sort of whiskey people try and then think they “don’t like whiskey” for the rest of their lives.
If you don’t believe me, my wife’s two-sentence review was, “Hideous. This is why people hate whiskey.”
2. Trader Joe’s Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky Aged 8 Years — Taste 2
This Speyside whisky is sourced for Trader Joe’s and bottled before being shipped over to the U.S. The juice in the bottle is a standard single malt aged for eight years before blending, filtering, and proofing.
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
This is a butterscotch boom on the nose with a hint of malted vanilla and bran muffins. The palate is lightly malted with a very watery opening next to orchard fruits and a light sense of “wood” that’s just touched with winter spices. A hint of honey and maybe some apple sneak in a late with a slightly woody but mostly watery finish.
Bottom Line:
This was fine. There was nothing really offensive about it but there wasn’t much there in the first place. It’d work perfectly fine with Coke and ginger ale but that’s about it.
This sourced whiskey is from an unknown Kentucky distillery (some say it comes from Barton 1792, like Costco’s whiskey but there’s no real proof backing that up). The juice is aged for five years before it’s blended, filtered, and proofed down for bottling.
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
The nose opens with a light sense of sour cherry, dried red chili, Red Hots, and a bit of cellar must. The palate is sweet with plenty of caramel, vanilla pudding, and a bit of heat that builds towards a sense of “wood” and leather. The end peters out a bit as the warmth overtakes the wood and fades away, leaving a sweet cherry/vanilla note.
Bottom Line:
This was… perfectly fine. It was cheap bourbon for $15. I wouldn’t make an extra trip to Trader Joe’s to buy this but I would pick up a bottle if it was on sale to use for whiskey and Cokes or… more likely cooking, tbh.
Part 2: Final Thoughts
Zach Johnston
Ugh. I taste a lot of whiskeys and these all fell to the bottom. The Scotch whisky was fine for what it is — a $20 bottle of young whisky. There was nothing offensive about it (though the nose was a little too butterscotch). Otherwise, it was a perfectly fine mixer for highballs with a lot of bold flavors in the mix.
The bourbon was also fine. I don’t really see the point of going out of your way to get this bottle when you can get a cheaper and better Jim Beam or Evan Williams pretty much everywhere. That said, there was nothing offensive about this bourbon. It was drinkable and easy-going.
Then there was the Tennessee whiskey. It’s an abomination. Avoid at all costs. I’m still kind of mad about it. Seriously.
Nick Cannon wastes no time. Surely we could’ve expected this from the man who very recently said he was “f*cking like crazy” and that he practices “consensual non-monogamy.” But while Cannon is currently expecting baby #9 with model Abby De La Rosa, he is also now officially expecting baby #10 with model Brittany Bell. De La Rosa is due on October 25th and a new video of Cannon posing with Bell shows that she’s pretty far along herself.
“Time Stopped and This Happened…,” Cannon wrote on Instagram. In the video, Cannon poses with Bell for maternity photos and her belly looks large enough to perhaps beat De La Rosa to the delivery room. Pretty impressive of Cannon & co. to keep this one under wraps. A quick look at Bell’s Instagram page, shows that she hasn’t posted any photos that could show a pregnant belly for months. Very sly!
This will mark Cannon’s 10th time being a father. Including his upcoming baby with De La Rosa, there are twins Monroe Cannon and Moroccan Scott Cannon (with Mariah Carey), Golden Cannon, Legendary Love Cannon, Zen S. Cannon, — who tragically passed away last December at five months old — Zion Mixolydian Cannon, Zillion Heir Cannon, and Powerful Queen Cannon.
And with now two more kids on the way, the internet — of course — has jokes.
Joe Biden didn’t have the best first year-and-a-half in office. He got a lot done, but he was also hampered by forces outside his control: quisling Democrats; an out-of-control Supreme Court; fellow party leadership that seemed under-motivated. By mid-summer, he’d suddenly found his mojo, and it’s been one bold move after another — all while his predecessor finally, belatedly seemed to (maybe) get his comeuppance.
On Wednesday, he added another success story: He offered (modest) student loan forgiveness to millions and millions of Americans. It could have been better; it wasn’t a total erasure, as some had hoped. But it was enough to aggravate all the right people, namely those on the right, some of whom themselves had even larger PPP debts forgiven. But when pressed on his not-that-controversial decision, Biden wasn’t backing down
REPORTER: Is this unfair to people who paid their student loans or chose not to take out loans?
BIDEN: Is it fair to people who, in fact, do not own multi-billion-dollar businesses if they see one of these guys getting all the tax breaks? Is that fair? What do you think? pic.twitter.com/HA9LzLBMSC
After addressing the forgiveness plan, which won’t take effect until later this year, Biden was heading for the door when ABC News correspondent Karen Travers asked if it was “unfair to people who paid their student loans or chose not to take out loans.”
But Biden was ready. “Is it fair to people who, in fact, do not own multi-billion-dollar businesses if they see one of these guys getting all the tax breaks? Is that fair?” he asked rhetorically. “What do you think?”
Biden’s quick response had people, some of whom had been underwhelmed by his presidency thus far, calling it straight-up badass.
I’m not the biggest fan of rap beef. Really, most confrontations outside the realm of sports make me a little nervous since I’ve seen how far these things can go, but it’s also part of my job to keep readers abreast of trends in music. Well, one of the long-running trends this year has been the ongoing friction between collaborators turned combatants Benny The Butcher and Freddie Gibbs, so here we are.
Here’s the short of it; this spring, after Freddie made what appeared to be disparaging comments about Benny on Twitter, Benny responded by insinuating that his time to collaborate with Freddie had come and gone and that he’d rejected Freddie’s pleas to work on a joint album together. Then, two months later, Gibbs made an appearance in Buffalo, Benny’s hometown, sporting what appeared to be a fresh shiner on around his eye onstage. After some speculation by fans, a video emerged online the next day, apparently depicting the two rappers’ crews brawling at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que restaurant in Buffalo ahead of Gibbs’ show there.
It was later reported that Gibbs’ chain had gone missing during the altercation and now, it seems we know where it ended up: in Benny’s possession. According to XXL, Benny posted a video on his Instagram Story showing off a jewelry collection that apparently now includes Freddie’s ESGN pendant. Freddie responded on his own Instagram Story, writing, “Benny gay ass need to stop flexing because he was there and didn’t throw a punch. Hoe ass n****s did all that brought a camera man and all for promo. Still can’t pack a room. Go head start rapping about me so I can start talking about these sealed plea agreements and shit … Head up fade solve everything. But n**** aint built like that.”
Now, Benny has escalated their static, posting another video to his Story this time wearing the ESGN chain while calling Freddie “MC Dinosaur Bar-B-Que” and mocking him for getting beat up. Freddy followed up with his own text post, against disparaging Benny for being unable to draw a crowd (legit, by the way — the Griselda show at the Novo in 2020 was sort of dead and this was pre-pandemic) and invited him once again to a one-on-one fight.
My take: Both of these guys are too old to be squabbling over social media like a couple of middle schoolers. Freddie’s 40 and Benny’s 36 and both should know better. Threatening shootouts and running five-on-one fades is corny, especially over rap. Either call Ultimate Rap League or get a boxing match sanctioned so you can have it out and have it over with, because this? This ain’t it.
It has been almost two and a half years since Moses Sumney released his latest studio album, Grae, and it looks like it’s going to be quite a while until he releases any other new material. Today, Sumney announced both the October 31st release of his new concert film, A Performance In V Acts, as well as a prolonged break from making music.
“A Performance in V Acts marks the official end of the græ album cycle,” Sumney said in a statement. “It’s a capsule of our headline show since we will not be touring the album after all. This film also ushers in a new period of creativity for me – one in which I take a continued break from making albums and touring music to focus on other disciplines.”
Sumney has already been dabbling in multidisciplinary work as of late. Last December, he released the performance film entitled Blackalachia and just this week, he was announced as a cast member on HBO’s The Idol, which was created by The Weeknd and Euphoria directer Sam Levinson.
With today’s news, Sumney has also shared a video with two songs from the upcoming concert film. First, a cover of Björk’s “Come To Me” (from her first album, Debut) as well as “Doomed” off of his 2017 album Aromanticism.
Watch Moses Sumney’s performances of “Come To Me” and “Doomed” above and A Performance In V Acts is out on 10/31. Watch a trailer for it below.
Fans of the Law & Order franchise got a real treat today while seeing a peek at the upcoming three-show crossover (arriving on Sept. 22). Yep, that’s right, we’re not only gonna see content that resembles the existing SVU and Organized Crime spinoff crossovers, but those characters will also bump into detectives from the revived series proper. So, there will be Detective Benson and Detective Stable and their Unresolved Sexual Tension together, along with Detectives Shaw and Benson, too. And hopefully some Fin Tutuola.
More Law & Order news arrived very quickly. Peacock announced that they’re taking over next-day streaming rights (on NBC shows) from Hulu, and then we heard that a longtime SVU star would run for the hills after Season 24. That news applied to Kelli Giddish, who portrays Detective Rollins, but I guess that Ice-T got wind of people who initially feared (as I did) that Fin (and Ice) would leave the building.
Never fear. Ice-T is not leaving SVU. He does have a lot on his plate, yes, but he can do it all. “FYI. People think I’m leaving SVU every time I do something else. Do they not understand I’ve got 20 Jobs! Simultaneously,” the Body Count frontman tweeted.
FYI. People think I’m leaving SVU every time I do something else. Do they not understand I’ve got 20 Jobs! Simultaneously
So there you have it. He’s got over 20 seasons under his belt and no apparent plans to quit. And yes, Ice-T manages to balance a lot, including wild commericals, and keep on hustling. Someone needs to ask him if the Organized Crime octopus will be joining the triple-event crossover. I have a feeling that he’d like that subject as much as he enjoyed talking about “shipping.”
The dessert section is the most underutilized portion of the fast food menu. A lot of time and effort goes into main dishes, snacks, and even breakfast, and for good reason — if fast food restaurants focused too much on dessert they’d all end up like Dairy Queen and that’s the last thing we want. But a good dessert menu is still paramount and when a fast food chain has a great one (think Shake Shack, In-N-Out, and Five Guys), it’s usually a sign of the overall quality of their menu.
Dessert matters most in these (waning but still warm) summer months when nothing hits quite like your favorite frozen treats. Why cool off in AC like some kind of loser when you can be loving life by diving deep into the perfect strawberry milkshake? Or taking an epic spoonful of a well-crafted sundae? That’s the kind of life we want to live, and we want the same for you.
In celebration of all the best fast food desserts out there, we’re naming the single best at every fast food chain. From milkshakes to mini cakes, to ice cream, we’re shouting out only the absolute best entry on each menu — this way you can cool off and enjoy the final days of summer in the most delicious way possible. Let’s jump in!
Arby’s — Orange Cream Shake
Arby
Why We Love It:
As I mentioned in the intro to this piece, nothing hits in the summertime like a great dessert and Arby’s understand this — which is why they wait until the summer months to unveil this beloved limited-time treat. McDonald’s annual Shamrock Shake doesn’t got shit on Arby’s Orange Cream, which tastes exactly like a Creamsicle in milkshake form. You get that same refreshing mix of vanilla cream flavors and zesty and sweet orange, but unlike a popsicle, you can drink this, which makes it better in our opinion.
The consistency on Arby’s milkshakes isn’t the best, sadly — a little more thicccccness would turn this very good milkshake into a great one. As it stands, it’s perfect for about the first half, but once it melts the flavors start to become too intense. We suggest you grab the snack size over the small.
The Bottom Line:
It’s a drinkable orange creamsicle and it’s only available for the summer, so move fast if you want to try this one.
Burger King doesn’t do dessert well — or anything for that matter — but people swear by the Hershey’s Sundae Pie. I am not one of those people, but at BK you’ve got slim pickings and while I don’t think this is a dessert you need to order, it is Burger King’s best, and that’s what this list is all about… even when the best is just fine.
The Sundae Pie is built on a chocolate crust which, strangely, doesn’t taste all that much like chocolate, with a thick layer of chocolate and vanilla creme, and topped with Hershey’s chocolate chips. It’s intensely sweet, with that familiar Hershey’s flavor, but it’s not quite as moist as it should be. The creme, despite being literally cream, is somehow too dry. The texture and mouthfeel is too thick and sugary — it should melt in your mouth, but it doesn’t.
The Bottom Line:
For Burger King, it’s a pretty good dessert, but it’s not worth taking a trip to Burger King to try. Eat it if you have a coupon.
For starters, let’s get one thing straight — marionberries, which you may not have even heard of, are the best berry. They’re like blackberries (in fact, they’re a cultivar of blackberries) but a little tarter and sweeter. Think “raspberry but not so tart” or “blackberry but not so earthy tasting.” They’re kind of a fusion.
Marionberries were developed in Oregon and named for a county there. So it’s no huge surprise that seasonally-driven Oregon-based chain Burgerville would highlight them each summer.
And boy, do they ever highlight them — this shake is amazing. The dessert itself is rich and not overly tart — which I dislike in berry-driven shakes. Still, there’s some tartness that’s immediately balanced by the creamy notes. The texture and mouthfeel are pure silk and the shake is thicccc enough to last your whole meal.
The Burgerville whipped cream on top has real substance — it’s practically neutral-tasting soft serve — and the marionberry syrup is the perfect accent without pushing the shake toward being too sweet. It’s really a blissful (if fleeting) experience, top to bottom.
The Bottom Line:
I haven’t tasted all the fast food shakes, but in the past 365 days, this is definitely the only one I’ve ordered more than once. — Steve Bramucci, Uproxx Life Editorial Director
We have to give it to the Carl’s Jr. milkshakes — they’re pretty damn good and the Strawberry is easily the best in the line-up. Carl’s Jr. uses real ice cream in their milkshake, rather than a vanilla soft serve base with syrup mixed in, resulting in a very thick consistency with strong and distinct flavors that don’t taste like overly sweetened iterations of the same flavor, like some of the cheaper milkshakes out there (ahem, McDonald’s).
The strawberry is particularly good in the way it combines bright and fruity strawberry notes with rich and creamy vanilla tones that hit that perfect middle ground between decadently sweet and cool and refreshing. With some whipped cream mixed in you can enhance the sweetness even more and bring those creamy qualities to the forefront.
The Bottom Line:
Thick and refreshing, everything a great milkshake should be.
If you haven’t had Chick-fil-A’s Peach Milkshake yet, what are you even doing with your life? You need to remedy that immediately because this milkshake isn’t just good, it may well be the absolute best milkshake in all of fast food. This decadent dessert features real peaches blended in Chick-fil-A’s vanilla soft serve, offering a flavor that is sweet, tart, and creamy with a slightly sour finish. Occasionally you’ll get bits of juicy peach traveling up your straw, offering a burst of fruity flavor.
By keeping this one seasonal, Chick-fil-A consistently delivers on this milkshake — it never tastes off or underwhelming. Move fast because summer is almost over and this milkshake will soon leave menus nationwide.
The Bottom Line:
Easily fast food’s greatest milkshake — don’t sleep on this seasonal gem.
Truthfully, any of Dairy Queen’s Blizzards could be your favorite — each one is as delicious as the next — but we’re going with the Girl Scout Thin Mints as our number one pick, both for the novelty of a mint shake and because who doesn’t love Girl Scout Thin Mints? Girl Scout cookies are the only thing enjoyable about a child knocking on your door. Under any other circumstance, even if it’s a nephew or kid brother or sister, is just obnoxious. But greet someone with cookies and you’ll always find a smile!
This milkshake utilizes real Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies and cool mint flavoring blended into Dairy Queen’s thick vanilla soft-serve base. Each spoonful is a mix of vanilla mint flavors and a crunchy chocolate cookie, providing a nicely textured mouthfeel with a refreshing and rich flavor that always beats back the summer heat.
The Bottom Line:
The best mint dessert in all of fast food. Dairy Queen’s Thin Mints Blizzard delivers on mouthfeel, flavor, and thickness.
Five Guys’ Chocolate Shake is the best chocolate shake I’ve ever had. Period. The rich, complex, and remarkably consistent flavor of this shake makes it the perfect experience from the first sip to last. Five Guys doubles down on the chocolate by mixing in real Ghirardelli chocolate with fudge, giving it a heavy chocolate-forward flavor that absolutely drowns the thick vanilla base it is mixed into.
I’ve never had a milkshake quite this chocolatey in my life.
There are a few ways to easily elevate this milkshake, you can add fresh banana and strawberries, or add a salty component to the sweet with some savory bacon, but I kind of think it stands best as a pure un-f*cked with chocolate flavor. You should allow your taste buds to luxuriate in the simple perfection that is this chocolate milkshake.
The Bottom Line:
The best chocolate milkshake you’ll ever drink from a fast food restaurant. We guarantee it.
Yes, part of the reason KFC’s chocolate chip cookie is on this list is that it’s KFC’s only dessert item, so by process of elimination, it gets a spot. But don’t sleep on this cookie, it’s way better than you think it is. I first developed a love for this cookie by ordering my favorite KFC combo, the $5 Fill-Up (which has since been renamed just ‘Fill-Up,’ as it’s not $5 anymore) which consists of a single piece of fried chicken, a side, and a chocolate chip cookie instead of a biscuit. At first, that was disappointing to me but this cookie tastes so good that I don’t miss the biscuit.
It’s a perfect chocolate chip cookie, it’s brown sugar sweet, buttery, and embedded with the perfect amount of semi-sweet chocolate chips. KFC used to make these cookies in-restaurant, and they were delicious. Now they’re pre-packaged, and they’re still pretty good… but not quite as amazing as they use to be.
The Bottom Line:
This is KFC’s only dessert option currently, but it’s actually worth adding to your order. It’s that good.
In-N-Out doesn’t have a lot of dessert options, just three shakes and a root beer float, but the best of desserts is the chocolate milkshake. It’s luxuriously thick with a faint-but-delicious cocoa flavor. It doesn’t hit you over the head with the taste of chocolate, which I admit sounds like a bad thing, but it’s not.
With this subtle approach, In-N-Out has crafted a chocolate shake that truly tastes unlike anything else in fast food.
The Bottom Line:
Light and faint but still delicious. Gentle echoes of chocolate over a thick luxurious ice cream base.
When I was in ninth grade I spent a lot of time after school at a nearby Jack in the Box. For me and a friend, it was the ideal hangout, nothing hit like a large order of fries and endless refills of Coke. One day, all sugared up with coke we ordered a slice of New York Cheesecake and became inspired to write a spec script for an episode of Seinfeld we simply called “The Cheesecake.” Never mind that Seinfeld had been off the air for years, it was hilarious.
That memory had me thinking Jack in the Box’s ultimate dessert was the cheesecake, but then I had a slice recently and… that shit is terrible. So we’re giving the spot to the Oreo Cookie Shake, which isn’t just delicious, it’s one of the best Oreo Milkshakes in all of fast food. JiB’s milkshakes are straw-bendingly thick, and the Oreo Cookie Shake is particularly hard to get through the straw because of the giant granules of crushed Oreo cookie spread throughout. This is a weird thing to notice but… JiB used to have blue straws that were slightly thicker than a typical straw, which I imagined were explicitly invented for the purposes of drinking these milkshakes, but in the last few years, JiB has ditched those straws, making this deliciously thick and creamy milkshake even harder to drink.
The best practice here is to mix in the whipped cream with your straw, and then start spooning the shake out. Each dip of the straw will leave you with a glob of milkshake at the end like you’re a monkey fishing termites out of a log with a twig. It’s the most primal way to eat a milkshake, but it’s also super effective.
The Bottom Line:
Jack in the Box makes deliciously decadent and thick as hell milkshakes, this is their best and one of the finest examples of a good Oreo shake in all of fast food.
For the longest time, I was under the impression that the Oreo McFlurry was McDonald’s best dessert, but I’ve since come around to the Hot Fudge Sundae for its simple and direct flavor. The sundae is made with the same vanilla soft serve base used in the McFlurry, but instead of sweet crunchy Oreos, you get a healthy helping of warm fudge, which adds a chocolatey richness to the flavor that satisfies way more than some crushed-up cookie ever could.
Ask for a pack of crushed nuts (some locations have them, some don’t) and add some texture and buttery flavor to this deliciously sweet and rich snack.
The Bottom Line:
Your instincts will push you towards the McFlurry but fight them, this hot fudge sundae packs a more complex flavor and it’s cheaper!
Popeyes started in New Orleans and even though the company is now Florida based, it’s still a New Orleans staple — so it only makes sense for them to have beignets, another NOLA staple, even those these weird chocolate-filled fried dough balls don’t really capture the magic of a fresh batch from Cafe Du Monde. They might not have the light fluffy crispy characteristic of beignets down — these are soggier, chewier, and kind of greasy — but the delicious combination of fried dough, powdered sugar, and melted chocolate is hard to deny.
The only problem I have with these beignets is that they seem like a low priority for the Popeyes employees. If these were sugared right after leaving the fryer, the powdered sugar would adhere to the beignet perfectly, but they hardly ever are, resulting in most of your sugar staying at the bottom of the bag. Don’t get me wrong, they’re sweet enough, but the powdered sugar adds some balance to the richness of the chocolate, resulting in a much better beignet.
The Bottom Line:
No, they’re not as good as a beignet from your favorite corner bakery but they’re delicious and offer a nice counterpoint to the spicy chicken sandwich.
About every three months, Shake Shack unveils a new roster of limited edition shakes. While the chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry are delicious, you should always order the limited-time stuff. Currently, the best is this Chocolate Churro Shake, which combines a cinnamon sugar custard with dark chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and waffle cone crumbles.
It doesn’t really taste anything like a churro but who cares? It’s delicious!
The cinnamon sugar blend leans more toward the light flavor of white sugar, but you still get some of that earthy spice from the cinnamon and it pairs excellently with the rich citrus-y dark chocolate tones. The waffle crumble brings some texture to this sometimes too easy-to-sip shake but we can’t help but wish the texture was brought via actual bits of churro. Maybe next year!
The Bottom Line:
Shake Shack’s current best seasonal shake. It’s got rich dark chocolate, spicy and sweet cinnamon sugar, and texture!
It’s a milkshake with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups mixed into it — need we really say more? Like Dairy Queen’s Blizzard, Sonic Blasts are pretty much all great but this one offers is our favorite. Each spoonful is packed with a mix of creamy vanilla and peanut butter cups, offering a rich and slightly salty sweetened peanut butter flavor. As if that wasn’t good enough as it is, you can bring this up a level by adding fresh banana, upping the complexity of the flavor, resulting in something that is bursting with a decadent richness
The Bottom Line:
It tastes just as good as you expect it to, this is the perfect marriage of flavors and one of the best ways to enjoy a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Or you know, several.
Before you come at me in the comments, yes, I know Taco Bell has Cinnabon Delights — tiny little bite-sized icing-filled Cinnabons — but those things aren’t good. Sure, they sound great in theory and maybe if you’re lucky to receive a fresh order they might be delicious but in my experience the Delights are always incredibly stale, old and dry. The icing doesn’t have that same depth of flavor that actual Cinnabons have, instead it’s sickly sweet and kind of sour.
I’m sticking with the classic Cinnamon Twists for the win.
These things are weird and delicious. They taste like a blend of spicy cinnamon and white sugar and nothing else. Seriously, pour some cinnamon and sugar on a plate, dip your finger in it and lick and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what this tastes like. The twist itself is almost flavorless, featuring nothing more than a crispy and crunchy texture. It’s like if someone found a way to fry air and seasoned it with cinnamon and sugar, which is boring as far as desserts go but still tastes great.
I know we’ve been shouting out a lot of seasonal limited-time milkshakes on this list but we have to give credit where credit is due and the Strawberry Frosty is the best Frosty flavor of all time. This is the first year Wendy’s has ever done strawberry — and they had to eliminate vanilla temporarily to do it — and it’s the best dessert decision the brand has ever made. This absolutely dunks on the chocolate flavor, which let’s face it, tastes like f*cking frozen Nesquik.
To make this, Wendy’s uses fresh in-season strawberries and blends it into their vanilla frosty base, resulting in a flavor that starts sweet and creamy and ends with a pronounced tart zip. It tastes even better when you dip fries into it, adding a salty component that tastes better than it sounds, trust us.
The Bottom Line:
Wendy’s made a strawberry Frosty for the first time this year, get it while you still can.
It has been a little over eight weeks since Bronx rapper Lil Tjay was hospitalized after being shot during a botched robbery attempt in New Jersey. After undergoing emergency surgery for multiple gunshot wounds, Tjay reportedly regained consciousness a week later and was able to speak and respond to questions without assistance. Miraculously, his voice was unaffected despite being shot in the chest and neck. Three arrests were made in the case, resulting in charges for first-degree attempted murder for the shooter and second-degree unlawful possession of a weapon for his accomplices.
Earlier this week, Tjay announced his impending return to the spotlight with a billboard in his home borough announcing, MJ-style, “I’M BACK.” However, in a new video that he posted on Instagram today, he still looks like he’s a few weeks away from performing and recording again as he thanks fans for their support and reveals a few details of the shooting, including that he was shot seven times. “I just wanna say thanks for the love, thanks for the support,” he says in the video. “I’ve been looking at the DMs, the comments, and everything else and I feel love. Seven shots, it was tough, y’know? Most people don’t survive it, but I’m here. Here for a reason. New music coming soon. We’re gonna come back stronger than ever. Love y’all.”
You can watch Lil Tjay’s message to his fans below.
The MTV VMAs show will be happening on Sunday, August 28th with hosts LL Cool J, Nicki Minaj, and Jack Harlow. While Minaj and Harlow are also leading the way on an incredible list of performers on the awards show, the MTV VMAs have now also announced Bad Bunny as a performer. But his exclusive set will be unlike any of the others.
You see, where performers like Lizzo, Blackpink, Kane Brown, and Anitta will all be on stage at Newark’s Prudential Center during the MTV VMAs awards ceremony, Bad Bunny’s set will be beamed in directly from Yankee Stadium. That’s because the “Moscow Mule” singer is in the midst of his World’s Hottest Tour. So while he can’t physically be in the building for the MTV VMAs, he’s found a way to still be a part of the night.
Bad Bunny performed at the 2019 MTV VMAs with J Balvin, when the pair did the song “Que Pretendes” and now his 2022 performance promises “never-before-seen choreography.” Bad Bunny is also up for multiple awards at the 2022 MTV VMAs including Artist Of The Year and Best Latin Video.
The 2022 MTV VMAs are on August 28 at 8 p.m. EST. It’ll be broadcast on MTV and multiple other networks. Get full details on the award show here.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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