Ah, the vanilla shake! The foundation upon which all other milkshakes are built. Long synonymous with words like “basic,” “plain,” and “boring,” we think vanilla gets a bit too much flack.
If you line up all the common shake flavors together — chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and hell, let’s throw Oreo in there — sure, vanilla cosmetically looks like the absence of flavor. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Vanilla is delicious. It’s delicate, floral, sweet, and creamy. If that doesn’t sound good to you, I don’t know what to tell you aside from informing you that your tastebuds might be broken.
Okay, fine — we’ll admit that it’s not as exciting as the other milkshake flavors. But on a hot day, while temperatures are scorching, nothing is more refreshing than a cold vanilla shake.
So who makes the best vanilla shake in fast food? It’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves since we last blind taste tested chocolate shakes. And today, we’re ready to answer it!
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Methodology
As we found out in our last blind milkshake taste test, blind tasting shakes is a huge challenge — especially as the weather gets warmer. I needed to be able to scoop up five milkshakes in a relatively short amount of time (meaning the fast food restaurants chosen needed to be in close proximity) and make sure none of them melted. The good news is that’s doable with the help of a small cooler and the same route I sketched out for our chocolate milkshake blind taste test.
The idea was to pick up vanilla milkshakes from Chick-fil-A, Dave’s Hot Chicken, Five Guys, In-N-Out, and Shake Shack, five fast food restaurants that all make fantastic milkshakes. And then as I pulled up to the Dave’s Hot Chicken drive-thru I heard the seven worst words you can ever hear from a drive-thru speaker “I’m sorry, our milkshake machine is broken.” Because I was working on a time crunch with perishable products, there was no time to improvise, so instead of a five-milkshake taste test as we did in our chocolate taste test, we’re going with just the four. Considering Dave’s didn’t even make the top three last time around, it doesn’t seem like that much of a loss (with that said, my editor tried it and called me twice to call it the best vanilla shake in all of fast food so… we might eventually have to run this back.)
Once the fourth milkshake was acquired, I hit a nearby parking lot, put on a blindfold, and had my girlfriend pass me milkshakes at random. I tasted each, recorded a few voice notes on my phone, and then ranked them. All photos were taken after the initial tasting, so if they look a little brutal.. well, that’s what SoCal weather will do to a milkshake.
Part 1: The Milkshake Tasting
Taste 1:
“Holy shit!” Those are actually the words that came out of my mouth when I first sipped this. There is a rich luxuriousness here that I don’t think you’d normally associate with a vanilla milkshake. It’s deep and complex, starting with an initial creamy sweetness that slowly morphs into fragrant and floral territory that is an absolute treat for the taste buds.
After that floral sensation, the shake finishes with a bold-rich aftertaste that sits on the tongue in a pleasant way and begs for another sip. I won’t lie, when I tasted this thing I followed it up with two large brain-freeze-inducing sips. I didn’t want to move on from this one. If you’re wondering what’s up with those rainbow sprinkles, I learned later that Shake Shack was doing rainbow sprinkles for Pride Month.
They had no influence on the flavor whatsoever.
Taste 2:
This is undeniably Chick-fil-A. Ice Dream — which is what Chick-fil-A calls its vanilla soft serve ice cream, the base for this milkshake — has a distinct flavor that is easy to pick out. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, it gives this milkshake a lot of character.
The flavor here is creamy and delicate, with a strange lingering aftertaste that I don’t really enjoy. It’s worth enduring that aftertaste for the base flavor though.
Taste 3:
Objectively bad. This milkshake tastes like straight-up frozen milk. It almost has a stomach-churning quality to it. Not a fan.
Taste 4:
Another vanilla milkshake that manages to come across as deep and rich. There is something worth savoring here, it’s incredibly enjoyable to let the milkshake sit and melt on the tongue. It’s creamy, easily the thickest of the four milkshakes, but lacks the complexity of Taste 1.
Part 2: The Milkshake Ranking
4. In-N-Out — Vanilla Milkshake (Taste 3)
I was shocked In-N-Out came in dead last for me. I love In-N-Out’s chocolate and strawberry shake, I’ve definitely ordered the three-flavor Neapolitan, and on certain days I even order the Root Beer float, which is made with this very flavor of milkshake. But it was hands down the least delicious of the four.
If anything, “least delicious” is being generous. I did not like this milkshake, not even a little bit.
The Bottom Line:
Vanilla has a bad reputation as a milkshake flavor because of milkshakes like this. Unimaginative, flat in flavor and character, and just too milky to be good.
Find your nearest In-N-Out here.
3. Chick-fil-A — Vanilla Milkshake (Taste 2)
Chick-fil-A has texture down. This milkshake is perfect in that regard, it’s thick and luxurious, but airy enough to be easy to drink through a straw. But Chick-fil-A’s vanilla is just too plain. Not only is it the brand’s weakest flavor (in a world where you can get a chocolate peach milkshake, why would you order this?), but in comparison to the other vanilla milkshakes out there, it just tastes too neutral.
Its biggest issue is it tastes like a base to be built upon, rather than a standalone flavor.
The Bottom Line:
It’s fine. Good, not great. The texture is on point but the flavor leaves a lot to be desired.
Find your nearest Chick-fil-A here.
2. Five Guys — Vanilla Milkshake (Taste 4)
Here is the thing about Five Guys’ vanilla milkshake. It’s delicious, creamy, rich, flavorful, the kind of milkshake you want to let melt in your mouth and bathe your palate. Having said that — I think you shouldn’t order it. Look, the thing with Five Guys is, it’s a customizable menu, that includes the milkshake.
You can order a chocolate milkshake, with bananas, strawberries, Oreo cookies, and peanut butter in it! Hell go crazy and add bacon into the mix too! And after all that, it’ll cost the exact same price as this vanilla milkshake.
That begs the question, why would you ever order vanilla here? While this is delicious, it wasn’t the best we tasted today, and as good as it is, even ranking it second somehow feels wrong.
The Bottom Line:
I think vanilla is a perfectly valid milkshake flavor, just not at Five Guys. Go crazy, add whatever you want into that milkshake. If you insist on having plain vanilla, it’ll taste good, but you’ll be spending over $6 for it, and it won’t feel worth it.
Find your nearest Five Guys here.
1. Shake Shack — Malted Vanilla Milkshake (Taste 1)
Malted wins again! In terms of consistency, Shake Shack loses to both Chick-fil-A and Five Guys — I wouldn’t describe this milkshake as thick — but the flavor is unbeatable. Being able to order this thing malted makes it taste so much deeper and richer than the competition.
Imagine the best representation of vanilla you’ve ever tasted, and then elevate that and you’ll have the Shake Shack Malted Vanilla Milkshake. This was a clear winner for me it wasn’t even close, and you know what? I think it’s well deserved.
Shake Shack is the only fast food restaurant that we tasted from that actually has “shake” in the name, and with the way this thing tastes, it feels justified that the brand would choose to elevate its milkshakes above even the unbeatable burgers. It’s not called “Burger Shack,” after all!
The Bottom Line:
It’s malted, the only way milkshakes ever should be. There is a depth of character here that makes the case for why vanilla is a staple flavor in the first place. For those who think vanilla is boring, drink a malted vanilla shake from Shake Shack and see if you still feel the same way after gulping the thing down!
Find your nearest Shake Shack here.