Can you feel it? Summer is coming to a close (kinda — we don’t know where you live). We don’t want to admit it either but let’s face facts, this is the final full month of the season and we’re nearly halfway through it. Maybe that means you’ve started making travel plans for the holidays, or you’re planning a road trip to watch the leaves change. At the very least, you’ve probably started to rethink whether wearing shorts is the proper attire for a full-day out of the house. Don’t get us wrong, it’s still hot outside but not unbearably so.
That means if you’ve yet to grab an ice-cold brain-freeze-inducing fast food milkshake this summer, you’re f*cking up! What are you going to do drink a milkshake during the fall, aka pumpkin spice and hot chocolate season? Be prepared to be mocked!
Don’t worry, fam, Uproxx won’t let you let the season go without having at least one great milkshake, diet and health concerns be damned. So to celebrate the final hot days of summer we’re ranking the very best milkshakes across the fast food universe.** For this ranking, we picked a single stand-out milkshake from all the big fast food chains so if you’re favorite didn’t make the cut, sorry — we only have room for the best of the best here.
** EDITOR’S NOTE: I can only assume that if Dane had tasted Burgerville’s Marionberry Milkshake it would be among the top 2 or 3 entries. We will work on getting him up to the PNW to rectify this tragic omission. In the meantime, I’ve written about this glorious milkshake here.
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16. McDonald’s — McCafe Chocolate Shake
Thickness: 2/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
I very much wanted to include the Grimace Shack in this summer milkshake roundup, but unfortunately, McDonald’s has taken it off the menu. It’s not because of the insane viral videos — it was always meant to be limited — but in getting rid of it, McDonald’s has gotten rid of its best milkshake. The McCafe Chocolate Shake isn’t exactly a close second, but it’s a milkshake that you can drink, so… I guess it makes the list.
At the end of the day, this is a fine milkshake. It gets the job done, but compared to everything else in the fast food market, this just doesn’t hold up. The milkshake is made with McDonald’s vanilla soft serve base, blended with a flavored chocolate syrup that tastes too faint to be described as delicious. Overall this milkshake just comes across as too watery in consistency and too weak in flavor.
The Bottom Line:
Skip it and wait for the Shamrock Shake or the inevitable return of the Grimace shake.
Find your nearest McDonald’s here.
15. Wendy’s — Chocolate Frosty
Thickness: 5/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
The Chocolate Frosty is thick and super-rich, but with the rise of fast-casual chains like Shake Shack and Steak n Shake, it just doesn’t compare. There was a time when the Frosty was truly novel, offering an unparalleled milkshake experience, but today in 2023 it just comes across as tasting watered down and slightly bland.
I know there are people out there that are ride or die for the Frosty but our advice is, get out there a little more. There are much better milkshakes to be had, let this one die.
The Bottom Line:
Wendy’s makes great cheeseburgers, and delicious chicken sandwiches, and offers amazing sides. Unfortunately, the Frosty comes across like a relic of the past that is in desperate need of a revamp. Because it has such a legendary reputation, we fear it’ll never get that update.
Find your nearest Wendy’s here.
14. Burger King — Chocolate Oreo Milkshake
Thickness: 3/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
Burger King’s Chocolate Oreo Milkshake feels interesting, at the least. While shake-specialty fast food chains like Five Guys and Shake Shack have an equivalent to this milkshake, most drive-thru equipped fast food restaurants don’t, and that makes BK’s Chocolate Oreo Milkshake special. It is a standard chocolate milkshake with Oreo cookies blended into it. Vanilla tastes a lot closer to Oreo creme than chocolate does, so strangely this milkshake doesn’t exactly taste like an Oreo Milkshake at all, instead, it comes across as a rich brownie-flavored shake with bits of chocolate cookie for texture.
I don’t hate that! If Burger King paid a little more attention to their milkshake mix and swapped out its stock base with something a bit richer and creamier (and thicker), this milkshake would compete with the best of ‘em, but unfortunately for now this milkshake is just ~ pretty good ~ not great.
The Bottom Line:
A pretty solid chocolate milkshake with chocolate cookie textural elements. Good, but not great.
Find your nearest Burger King here.
13. Dave’s Hot Chicken — Chocolate Shake
Thickness: 3/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
Rich earthy chocolate notes dominate this shake. I love the deep chocolate flavor but I’m less of a fan of the slightly watery consistency. It comes up the straw a bit too easily, and it melts quickly. Dave’s Hot Chicken is a fairly new fast food chain and while I’ve sampled most of the menu (including every level of heat), I’ve yet to have the loaded milkshakes, so I can only speak to the quality of the vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry.
But considering Dave’s uses those flavors as the base to build the loaded milkshakes on, I can’t imagine that throwing a bunch of candy significantly improves the experience.
The Bottom Line:
A fine-tasting chocolate milkshake, but the consistency leaves a lot to be desired.
Find your nearest Dave’s Hot Chicken here.
12. Carl’s Jr. — Hand-Scooped Vanilla Ice Cream Shake
Thickness: 4/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
Carl’s Jr’s milkshakes don’t rely on soft-serve vanilla ice cream to serve as a base, instead opting to hand-scoop real ice cream into the mixer. The result is a much thicker and richer milkshake, and no flavor shows this off better than the vanilla. Rather than tasting like super sweet milk, this milkshake actually captures the floral soft notes of natural vanilla. Imagine a great scoop of fresh vanilla ice cream, but drinkable!
While I like this shake a lot, it’s hard for a plain vanilla shake to compete with more complex flavors and interesting mix-ins, for that we have to rank this lower than we think it deserves.
The Bottom Line:
If you love the flavor of vanilla, few milkshakes out there can compare to this thick and creamy milkshake which actually captures some of what makes vanilla a special flavor.
Find your nearest Carl’s Jr. here.
11. Arby’s — Jamocha Shake
Thickness: 3/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
Arby’s milkshake offerings are straight-up sad, but although the roster is thin this chain is one of the few fast food brand’s that offer a coffee milkshake, and we love them for that!
The Jamocha shake sports a decadent bold coffee flavor hovering over rich chocolatey notes. It’s similar to a Mocha Frappuccino in consistency, but the flavor focuses more on sweet notes rather than coffee. It’s not complex by any means, but it still has a bitter vibe and a considerable amount of caffeine, making it one of the best morning milkshakes.
Milkshakes in the morning? Gotta love summer!
The Bottom Line:
It has a sort of Mocha Frappuccino flavor but with a greater focus on sweetness.
Find your nearest Arby’s here.
10. Del Taco — Strawberry Shake
Thickness: 4/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
Refreshing and fruity with a luxurious consistency and actual bits of frozen strawberry that come through the straw offering the occasional tangy infusion of flavor. When a fast food brand only offers the big three milkshake flavors (vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate) it’s rare that strawberry rises above the rest, but at Del Taco it’s hands down the best option.
We can credit the inclusion of real strawberries for that one.
The Bottom Line:
The best strawberry milkshake in fast food.
Find your nearest Del Taco here.
9. Jack in the Box — Oreo Milkshake
Thickness: 2/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
Luxuriously thick with a vanilla cream-forward flavor that ends with a strong chocolate cookie finish. The Oreo cookies mixed into this shake are surprisingly crunchy despite being drowned in a vanilla base and JiB goes heavy on the mix-ins here, providing you with a lot of cookie flavor in every sip. At one point in time, this was a top-tier fast food milkshake, but just this year we blind taste-tested Oreo Milkshakes and this one came up dead last.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
The Bottom Line:
It’s good, but several other brands are doing Oreo Milkshakes much better.
Find your nearest Jack in the Box here.
8. Sonic — Strawberry Cheesecake Master Shake
Thickness: 5/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
A single sip takes you on a journey that begins creamy, shifts into a sharp wince-inducing tang, morphs into sweet cherry and fruity strawberry flavors, and finishes with a nice nutty cinnamon-inflected graham cracker vibe. Sonic is on some gourmet shake, so they’ve earned the right to use the ridiculous “Master Shake” name.
I’ve long been a fan of Sonic’s Strawberry Cheesecake Master Shake because it’s a bit different than everything else in the fast food landscape. Few brands attempt to capture the magic of strawberry cheesecake, probably because Sonic already nailed it so well, so why try?
The Bottom Line:
If you love strawberry cheesecake, this milkshake will blow your mind. It’s rich, creamy, tangy, and packs a bouquet of flavors in every sip.
Find your nearest Sonic here.
7. In-N-Out — Neapolitan Shake
Thickness: 5/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
A medley of flavors that bloom along the palate, beginning with an intense burst of strawberry flavor before settling into creamy chocolatey territory. The consistency is thick and incredibly rich, so if you’re living in California, the land of the paper straws, consider bringing your own because your spit will sog that paper straw up making it useless before you’re done drinking.
If you’re wondering why this isn’t on the menu, it’s because it’s part of In-N-Out’s Secret Menu, but don’t worry you can ask for a “Neapolitan Shake” and the employees will still know what you’re talking about.
The Bottom Line:
One of In-N-Out’s most delicious secrets.
Find your nearest In-N-Out here.
6. Steak n Shake — Oreo Mint Milkshake
Thickness: 4/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
Remember when I said there were several fast food brands that did Oreo milkshakes better than Jack in the Box? Steak and Shake is one of them. This milkshake offers a stunningly complex iteration of an admittedly overused flavor. It begins with a cool mint flavor that pairs perfectly with the semi-bitter cocoa flavor of Oreo cookies before finishing with a sweet vanilla flavor.
Every element of this milkshake is thicker than what JiB offers, from the whipped cream to the milkshake base. JiB wishes it had a milkshake this good!
The Bottom Line:
Like an Andes Mint had a baby with an Oreo Cookie and that baby was a delicious milkshake.
Find your nearest Steak n Shake here.
5. Johnny Rocket’s — Chocolate Chip Cookie Shake
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Thickness: 4/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
Johnny Rocket’s Chocolate Chip cookie shake is exactly what it sounds like — a milkshake that captures the magic of a chocolate chip cookie. It’s smooth and buttery with a prominent brown sugar flavor with semi-sweet chocolate notes on the aftertaste. As good as this milkshake is, it’s unfortunately not a permanent fixture on Johnny Rocket’s menu so if you like the idea of drinking a chocolate chip cookie, get yourself to Johnny Rockets as quickly as possible.
The Bottom Line:
A delicious milkshake that features a buttery brown sugar flavor with gentle kisses of semi-sweet chocolate flavor.
Find your nearest Johnny Rockets here.
4. Dairy Queen — Banana Malt
Thickness: 5/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
Why don’t more fast food restaurants serve banana milkshakes? How is this not an obvious win for everyone? Thankfully we have DQ and their Banana Malt is so good it’s worth a trip for the milkshake alone.
The combination of sweet intense banana flavor and the toasty malted milk powder combine to create a milkshake so rich that a single sip will cause you to exclaim “god damn!” Be warned, if you drink this milkshake out in public you’re going to embarrass yourself because it’s too hard to drink it and not express to someone just how delicious it is.
DQ is one of the few fast food chains that still use malted milk powder in its milkshakes, offering a richer and thicker milkshake than the competition.
The Bottom Line:
A winning combination. It’s one part intensely sweet and tropical, one part toasty and rich. If you haven’t been to DQ in a minute, this right here is a reason to go.
Find your nearest Dairy Queen here.
3. Five Guys — Milkshake with Oreos and Oreo Creme
Thickness: 5/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
There isn’t a single fast food restaurant that makes a better Oreo milkshake than Five Guys because this tastes exactly like an actual Oreo cookie. It has a supremely thick consistency with a prominent chocolate cookie finish. The sensation of drinking this milkshake is a bit like eating an Oreo inside out, it begins creamy and sweet and finishes with that strong cocoa flavor characteristic of Oreos.
It’s no secret how Five Guys is able to pull this off, they throw both the Oreo cookie and its cream into the milkshake, rather than just the cookies like most of the other fast food chains out there. The results are incomparable, this is the ultimate Oreo Milkshake and we even did a blind taste test to prove it. Five Guys has a fully customizable menu so don’t just stop at Oreos, go ahead and mix in bananas, peanut butter, or even bacon for a salty smokey finish.
The Bottom Line:
Your favorite Five Guys milkshake will vary based on what sort of mix-ins you like, but using the Oreo cookies and creme as a starting base will ensure that you build a truly delicious milkshake.
Find your nearest Five Guys here.
2. Chick-fil-A — Peach Milkshake
Thickness: 4/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
Delicate, floral, sweet and slightly tangy, Chick-fil-A’s Peach milkshake is truly one of the greatest milkshake experiences in all of fast food. It’s made with real peach puree blended with Chick-fil-A’s iconic Icedream soft serve and topped with creamy ribbons of whipped cream. The consistency is very thick, yet somehow airy, and passes easily through the straw.
This is a seasonal milkshake that only hits the menu in the summer, which is a true shame because it’s significantly better than all of Chick-fil-A’s milkshake flavors. So much so that I’m going to go ahead and suggest you not even bother ordering a milkshake from Chick-fil-A in any other season.
The Bottom Line:
A must-order. Hurry while you still can because this seasonal shake leaves the menu as soon as the weather turns cool.
Find your nearest Chick-fil-A here.
1. Shake Shack — Malted Chocolate Milkshake
Thickness: 4/5
Tasting Notes & Thoughts
Remarkably complex beginning with flavors of rich cocoa and earthy brown sugar that turn nutty and toasted as it melts on the tongue. The flavors here go deep, the way they inundate your taste buds and completely take over your senses is unparalleled in the fast food space. I’ve never had a fast food milkshake that tastes as rich, overwhelming, and satisfying as this.
Now sure, naming a plain chocolate milkshake as the best in all of fast food admittedly feels weak and a bit boring, but the flavor here is undeniable — sometimes you just can’t compete with a classic.
Make sure when you’re ordering your milkshake from Shake Shack that you “make it malted,” because that malted milk powder deepens and enriches the flavors in a way the stock milkshake just doesn’t. Once you go malted, you’ll never be able to settle for a milkshake that isn’t malted.
The Bottom Line:
Shake Shack earns its name by producing the finest milkshake in the entire fast food landscape. You may not believe that a simple chocolate malted milkshake can beat them all, but order this just once and we guarantee you won’t be arguing with our choice. Nothing beats this, period.
Find your nearest Shake Shack here.