Milkshakes, the go-to dessert for countless people, have evolved into so many different varieties and flavors that it can be difficult to decide which to buy. Overall, any milkshake can give the satisfaction of a sweet treat, but some are inevitably higher quality than others. 

The criteria for the restaurant with the  “best milkshake” comes down to the milkshake’s texture, flavor, and price. The milkshakes tested were simply plain, vanilla milkshakes, as these provided the baseline for most other milkshake options. The three restaurants tested were Dairy Queen, Culvers, and lastly McDonalds. 

In third place, the Culvers’ milkshake. When first ordered, the texture of this milkshake was too thick to drink, and even after thirty minutes of melting, it remained the consistency of thick ice cream. This fact could be attributed to the fact that Culvers is known for their frozen custard, which is conventionally much thicker than ice cream to begin. Despite being difficult to drink, the overall flavor of the Culvers’ milkshake was satisfactory, but not prominent enough to stand out. The flavor was very passable. The Culvers’ milkshake was the second most expensive, at $3 for the smallest size available. Considering the small size of the milkshake, this was not an unreasonable price, but still ranked between the other two options.

Following Culvers, the Dairy Queen milkshake ranked second overall. The small, vanilla milkshake had a perfect texture when initially bought. The dessert was not entirely liquid but was smooth enough that it was easy to drink and enjoy. As time went on, the shake melted fairly quickly, but still left enough time to be enjoyed. The flavor of the milkshake tasted much more like milk than it did like ice cream. Alone, it would have tasted standard, but in comparison to the other two milkshakes, the flavor was somewhat lacking. It was much less of a sweet milkshake, in contrast with the other two.

The Dairy Queen milkshake was the most expensive, at $3.49 for a small. All of the milkshakes were the same size, but the pricing did not necessarily reflect this. Dairy Queen has many options and flavor combinations that would allow for a more flavorful milkshake, but the vanilla flavor and pricing were subpar.

Finally, in first place was the McDonalds’ milkshake. This came as a shock considering that both Dairy Queen and Culvers are known for their ice cream, while McDonalds simply has ice cream in addition to the food that they are better known for.  The McDonalds’ milkshake was the best flavor to begin with. The consistency was thin enough that it was easy to drink yet still resembled ice cream. Although this shake did melt slightly faster than the others, its initial texture was good enough to excuse this fault. 

Further, the McDonalds’ shake had the overall best flavor by far. The other two milkshakes seemed somewhat muted by the milk taste, but this milkshake was filled with flavor and not at all “muted.” The flavor was the main feature that surprisingly stood out about this milkshake. Despite its superior flavor and texture, this milkshake was also significantly cheaper than the others for the same amount. The small milkshake cost $2.19, significantly lower than the pricing for the others. This was the final factor that secured the McDonalds’ milkshake in first place.

Although one really cannot go wrong when deciding on a milkshake location, the surprising findings of McDonalds ranking above Culvers and Dairy Queen suggests that McDonalds should not be discounted when looking for a milkshake.