Moo-juice masterpiece
August in West Texas means H-O-T hot.
Sure you can fight back with a nice cold scoop of ice cream, but be warned: It’s liable to melt before you can squint and shake your fist at the sun.
That’s why some proactive folks take a little initiative and get their ice cream halfway melted — with a little milk, air and maybe some flavored syrup mixed in.
It’s called a milkshake, and it’s an American tradition, a fixture seemingly straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
And although the drug store may have disappeared from downtown years ago, taking with them the old fashioned diner-style, date-night-double-straw-malt soda fountain counter, the art of the shake is not dead.
According to a USA Today article from April 2007 that cited a study by the market research firm NPD Group, milkshakes, malts and floats experienced an 11 percent spike in sales during 2006, when an estimated 10 percent of the beverages were, surprisingly, consumed at breakfast.
Another 30 percent, according to USA Today, comprised midnight snacks.
So buck up, you milky-eyed romantics. The shake is still shaking.
Sergio Contreras, manager at Odessa’s Fuddruckers, said the milkshake business is booming, especially this time of year.
He estimated the restaurant sells between 50 and 100 shakes on a busy weekend day.
Down the street at Walters Family Restaurant, co-owner Michele Simpkins said the shop sells about 20 — a ballpark estimate — in any given day.
She said older customers typically tend to be the ones buying the most shakes, but added that could be more of a reflection of the store’s customer base, not the frothy beverage’s demographic appeal.
And then there are those like 15-year-old Ashley Gardner, an 11th-grader at Permian High School who enjoyed a strawberry shake one sizzling Tuesday at Music City Mall.
She said she’s no stranger to the straw-and-spoon tag-team technique. She remembered partaking in strawberry-shake delight since … since “way back when I was little.”
But, according to Contreras and Simpkins, chocolate, without a doubt, reigns supreme.
Of course, the key to any good milkshake is the ice cream, Simpkins said, because that is, after all, the drink’s bottom line.
“The ice cream has to be good to start with,” she said, “because that’s the base of your milkshake.”
That’s not to say there aren’t other key factors that make a shake divine, Simpkins said, adding that texture is vital.
“It can’t be too thick, too runny,” she smiled. “It’s got to have a balance. I don’t like drinking a milkshake when I have to suck on the straw too hard.”
Contreras, too, said a good shake must be just right, which is why Fuddruckers maintains strict standards when they make a shake, paying extra attention to the company’s specifications.
“You just got to follow the specs,” he said. “People like to drink a perfect shake.”
MILKSHAKE FACTS
>> Rumor has it milkshakes’ popularity really took of after 1922, when Stephen Poplawski put a metal blade at the bottom of a container, essentially inventing the blender. Of course, Fred Waring came along 15 years later and created an improved version called the “Miracle Mixer.” It’s a cutthroat business, this milkshake industry.
>> In 1949, Dairy Queen introduced the first fast-food version of the milkshake. Long live the Queen!
>> Now, 60 years later, another fast food chain, Wendy’s, reportedly sells 300 million of their version of the milkshake, called “Frostys,” each year. That’s like a whole river of delectable awesomeness.
>> About a century ago, early versions of the milkshake were considered health elixirs and given to infants and the elderly to heal their aches and pains. Side effects may include brain-freeze headaches.
>> The current record for the largest milkshake was set in 2000. It contained 6,000 gallons. The previous record had 4,603 gallons. Now THAT is a freezer.
>> Sept. 12 is National Chocolate Milkshake Day; June 21 is National Vanilla Milkshake Day. It’s like Memorial Day and Labor Day, only less legit.
Source: www.avivadirectory.com/trivia/78-milkshake-trivia.
