Milkshakes are a classic favorite among many Americans. Milkshake Day or Shake day for short celebrates the wonderful thick drink that many have come to love. September has been designated as Shake Month.
- The first known printed reference to a “milkshake” dates back to 1885 and contains whiskey as one ingredient. For medicinal purposes only.
- Milkshakes got their name from being served in bars. If the customer enjoyed the milkshake, he shook hands with the bartender. If not, the bartender didn’t get a tip.
- According to The Guinness Book of World Records, in 2000 Ira Freehof (owner of Comfort Diners), (with a lot of help from Parmalot USA and The American Dairy Association), made the world’s largest milkshake. At 6,000 gallons it was the equivalent of 50,000 normal-sized shakes.
- Malted milk powder was invented in 1897 by James and William Horlick, but it was Ivar Coulson, a soda jerk for a Walgreen’s drug store, who first added it to milkshakes in 1922. This created the malted milkshake or just plain “malt.”
- Steven Poplawski invented the electric blender in 1922 just for milkshakes. Before that, the effort of shaking them up must have required a lot of upper body motion.
- During the 40’s and 50’s, diners made milkshakes exclusively popular and a part of American culture.
- Once the 60’s came along, fast food restaurants started implementing milkshakes into their food menus, and since then milkshakes have remained popular to this day.
- The most popular flavors among people are vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, and can have many different assortments of toppings.
- Bostonians call milkshakes “frappes,” but this can also simply mean a glass of milk with syrup. In the United Kingdom, milkshakes are called “thick shakes.” In Latin America, the Spanish word is “batido.”
- A surefire cure for hangovers is to drink a banana milkshake sweetened with honey. It helps soothe your stomach, plus it builds up depleted blood sugar levels and electrolytes such as magnesium and potassium.
- It’d take 3,200,000 average-sized milkshakes to fill up an Olympic-sized pool.
- Milkshakes were a popular food of the extras dressed in ape costumes during filming of the original PLANET OF THE APES movie. Their masks didn’t allow them to eat a regular meal, but they place a straw in their mouths.
- In the 1950s, milkshakes were called “frappes”, “velvets”, “frosted shakes”, or “cabinets” in different parts of the US. A specialty style of milkshake, the “concrete”, was “a milkshake so thick that the server hands it out the order window upside down, demonstrating that not a drop will drip.”
- Craziest milkshake flavors around the world include foie gras, Buffalo chicken, the McNuggetini, pizza, caramel popcorn, sweet potato, candied cashew and maple bacon.
- In 1963 the CIA unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Fidel Castro with a poisoned chocolate milkshake.
- Milky Way candy bars are not named after the galaxy. The name came from the malted milkshakes whose flavor they originally intended to mimic.
- Nestlé invented the first chocolate-flavored powdered milkshake mix in the USA in 1948. It was marketed under the name of Nestlé Quik. The Nesquik Bunny has promoted the brand since 1973.
- An American, Nancy Kissel, was found guilty in Hong Kong of adding sedatives to her husband’s milkshake before hitting him on the head with an ornament. The case became known as the “milkshake murder.”
Sources:
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