The Rise of Absolutely Over-the-Top Crazy Milkshakes

Plain chocolate or vanilla? So passé. We’d like a milkshake garnished with cookie crumbs, hot fudge, rainbow sprinkles, an entire brownie and one perfectly toasted marshmallow, please. If you think that sounds decadent, you should see what else restaurants are cramming into their shakes. Are you ready to invent a crazy milkshake of your own?

How the “freakshake” fad began

As best we can tell, the crazy-milkshake trend can be traced to Pâtissez, a café in Canberra, Australia, which introduced the Freakshow milkshake in 2015. It’s a simply enormous milkshake slopping over the rim of a handled Mason jar and crowned with an epic collection of toppings. The popular Nutella and salty pretzel shake is topped with a dollop of Nutella, whipped cream, more Nutella and a sprinkling of pretzel dust. Whole pretzels decorate the rim of the glass.

The “Freakshake” is so popular, Pâtissez warns patrons that “the wait list can get up to 4 hours long in which case we do stop taking names for tables as there is simply not enough hours in the day.” The wait for takeout shakes can be up to two hours.

Can milkshakes be any more decadent than the Freakshake? Oh yes indeed. While the milkshakes at New York City’s Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer aren’t as enormous, volume-wise, each one is a tower of sugary treats. Shakes are topped with cookies, lollipops, pretzel sticks, cotton candy, ice cream sandwiches or even an entire slice of birthday cake. (Watch how Black Tap makes its shakes.)

Cafes around the globe are trying to one-up each other. Whisk Creamery in Perth plops a cronut on top of its shakes. Wild Pear Café, a Middle Eastern restaurant in Sydney, has become famous for its rosewater and strawberry milkshake topped with fluffy pink fairy floss. Malaysia’s Garage 51 shakes include a plastic syringe filled with sauce.

Tips for adding an over-the-top milkshake to your menu

Have you considered joining the milkshake fray? We have a few suggestions.

• Think quality, not just showmanship. Super-sized, elaborately decorated milkshakes catch eyes on social media. But do they taste good? New York Post columnist Steve Cuozzo slammed the “commercial, bland Blue Bunny ice cream” and other mundane ingredients used in Black Tap’s creations. Pâtissez, on the other hand, makes most of its decadent shake toppings in-house: the brownies, the whipped cream, even the marshmallows. 

• Know your local audience. In July 2016, Pâtissez opened its second location in Singapore. But the café didn’t simply duplicate its Canberra menu. As Singaporean food blog Miss Tam Chiak notes, Freakshake creator Anna Petridis adjusted the recipe for Singaporean palates by using frozen milk and less ice cream: “The result is a smooth and less sweet milkshake that doesn’t compromise on its creamy texture.” 

• Understand there’s a downside to serving a fad food. Black Tap owner Joe Isidori was so overwhelmed by the Instagram-fueled demand for his shakes, he had to cut his tables from 20 to 15. He had construction crews work at night to expand the milkshake station and double the fridge space. “Many businesses fall victim to viral foods, where they just can't keep up with the demand and it crushes them," Isidori told Delish in April 2016. "Even though we have fewer seats, our sales have doubled." 

• Invest in a high-quality drink mixer or blender. Making gourmet milkshakes can be complicated and time-intensive. That’s why you need a commercial drink mixer or high-performance blender that’s powerful, durable and precise. Hamilton Beach Commercial’s classic Triple-Spindle Drink Mixer is compact but powerful, with hands-free operation to maximize efficiency.  And Hamilton Beach Commercial’s Summit blender features Auto Blend for consistent shakes, as well as a sophisticated cooling system that prevents the motor from overheating. Doolies Coffee and Juice in Sydney just recorded 138,000 cycles on their Summit blender — we think that’s a record! — and it’s still going strong.

Do you have an amazing milkshake on your menu? Tell us about it and we may feature it in a future post.