Milkshake

A milkshake (sometimes called a shake in the United States) is a sweet drink made by blending milk, ice cream, and flavorings or sweeteners such as butterscotch, caramel sauce, chocolate syrup, fruit syrup, or whole fruit into a thick, sweet, cold mixture. It may also be made using other types of milk such as almond milk, coconut milk, or soy milk.

Milkshakes originated in the United States around the turn of the 20th century, and grew in popularity following the introduction of electric blenders in the following two decades. They became a common part of youth popular culture, as ice cream shops were a culturally acceptable meeting place for youth, and milkshakes became symbolic of the innocence of youth.

Starting in 2019, throwing milkshakes at politicians—milkshaking—has become a common protest tactic.

Full-service restaurants, ice cream shops, soda fountains, and diners usually prepare the shake in a specialized mixer known as a milkshake machine. At home, a blender is more commonly used. Milkshakes may be made from any flavor of ice cream; additional flavorings, such as chocolate syrup, malt syrup, or malted milk powder, are often added prior to mixing.

Many fast food outlets do not make shakes from the individual ingredients; rather, they use automatic milkshake machines which freeze and serve a pre-made milkshake mixture consisting of milk, a sweetened flavoring agent, and a thickening agent. These are similar to soft-serve ice cream machines, but keep the shake at a drinkable consistency.

Terminology around the distinction between a milkshake that uses ice cream and other forms of flavored milk varies regionally. An ice cream-based milkshake may be called a thick shake to distinguish it. In parts of New England and eastern Canada, the name frappe (/fræp/ FRAP) is used.[1][2] Rhode Island residents sometimes refer to milkshakes as “cabinets”.[3] A milkshake containing malted milk powder is sometimes called a malt. The term concrete is used for particularly thick milkshakes that do not spill when turned upside down, such as at the restaurant Culver’s.

Milkshakes in the movies have been described a “shorthand for sweetness and goodness”.[29] In All About Eve, by director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Bette Davis’s character is unhappy to see a man she likes chatting up her young female assistant, so Davis’s character orders an alcoholic Martini, and “then mockingly suggests [that] Eve [the young assistant] will have a milkshake”, thereby “asserting womanhood over girlhood through milkshake’s associations with virginity.”[29] Similarly, the socially awkward and nerdy character Steve Buscemi plays in Ghost World is made fun of by a teenage girl because he orders a “virginal vanilla milkshake”; in Manhattan, by director Woody Allen, the director draws attention to the difference in age between his 42-year-old character (he also acts in the lead role) and his teenage girlfriend by having her drink a milkshake. In the film Lolita in 1997, a teenage girl drinks a milkshake while she is with the middle-aged man (her mother’s new boyfriend) who is attracted to her.[29] Pulp Fiction has a scene in a retro-50s diner where two characters on a first date discuss the merits of a “Five Dollar Milkshake” (“Martin and Lewis” for vanilla, “Amos ‘n’ Andy” for chocolate).

The characters from Archie Comics are often depicted drinking milkshakes. The TV series Riverdale, inspired by the comics, depicts the characters in a 1950s-inspired local diner, Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe; to promote the show, the cast shared a milkshake during an appearance on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon.[30]

Master Shake, one of the main characters from the American animated series Aqua Teen Hunger Force (also known by various alternative titles), is a life-sized anthropomorphic milkshake.

The term “milkshake duck” refers to the social media trend where “the internet rushes en masse to embrace something or someone as cute, worthy, fun or funny” (such as a duck that drinks milkshakes), but “then just as quickly drops it, when it’s revealed to somehow be unpleasantly complicated”; the paper called the term “useful shorthand” for when a “favourite [concept] is revealed to be problematic”.