Over the course of the summer, I embarked on a grueling mission: to taste and rank every shake on Shake Shack‘s menu.
Just as I was getting my appetite for shakes back, the chain announced three new holiday flavors — so I knew what I had to do.
It was time to revisit the shake rankings.
The 14 flavors, which are each made with frozen custard, include classics such as chocolate and vanilla, and limited-edition shakes, such as the Dubai Chocolate Pistachio shake, which was available over the summer. On November 18, the chain released three holiday flavors: a Christmas Cookie Shake, a Sticky Toffee Pudding Shake, and a Peppermint Bark Chocolate Shake.
Here’s how I ranked them all, from my least favorite to my favorite.
Shake Shack did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
In last place came the strawberry shake.
A strawberry shake costs $5 at my nearest Shake Shack in New York. It’s made with vanilla custard and “real strawberry,” according to the website.
There are 690 calories in a 16-ounce cup, Shake Shack’s standard shake size.
It was doomed from the start — I almost couldn’t get past its strong strawberry fumes.
This could just be personal bias, as I would never order a strawberry shake under any circumstances, but when I took the lid off and sniffed the shake, I felt like I was sniffing a strawberry-scented candle.
After tasting a sip, I was able to appreciate that this was one of the thickest shakes I tried. But it was just too sweet for me — I could only take a couple sips before feeling like I was rapidly developing a cavity.
In 13th place was the limited-edition Campfire S’mores shake.
The Campfire S’mores shake, which was available this summer, was made with vanilla frozen custard, graham crackers, “chocolate and toasted marshmallow fudge chunks,” and finished off with whipped cream and s’mores crumbles, per Shake Shack’s website description.
It cost $6.99 and had 1,090 calories.
You can see how much stuff was just sitting at the bottom, making this hard to drink.
There sure was a lot in there, but to me, this just tasted like a vanilla shake with some graham cracker bits mixed in, which was pretty unpleasant, texturally speaking.
I couldn’t taste chocolate or marshmallows, two of the three key s’mores ingredients.
In my opinion, it was not worth the extra 50 cents or the extra calories.
At No. 12 was another limited-edition shake: the Dubai Chocolate Pistachio shake.
Nobody is immune to Dubai chocolate, not even Shake Shack.
Shake Shack’s version of the viral snack — a chocolate bar filled with green pistachio cream and shredded phyllo pastry — was a shake that costs $9.99 and has 1,080 calories.
It was made with pistachio custard mixed with “toasted kataifi shredded phyllo” and was topped with mashed-up pistachios and kataifi.
It was encased in a crackable shell made of dark chocolate inside the cup, so it made sense that Shake Shack recommended it be best enjoyed cold.
I barely tasted any chocolate, and the shredded phyllo made this hard to drink, as well.
To me, this didn’t taste like chocolate at all, since the chocolate was completely frozen and didn’t mix with the pistachio custard.
The pistachio custard itself was delicious, but the phyllo mixed in felt strange to drink — almost as if paper had been added to my shake.
Since this was a more expensive shake, I can’t rank it any higher. But Shake Shack should definitely add a pistachio flavor to its lineup — I would drink it plain.
Shake Shack didn’t respond to a request for comment from Business Insider regarding its Dubai chocolate recipe or pricing.
My least favorite of the holiday shakes was the Christmas Cookie shake.
I visited Shake Shack’s Innovation Kitchen to try out the new holiday flavors, so I didn’t pay for this one, but per the chain’s website, it retails at $6.99 and has 840 calories.
It’s made with sugar-cookie custard and topped with whipped cream and red and green sprinkles.
Apparently, this is a fan favorite, but it was too sweet for my taste.
Nick Wuest, Shake Shack’s senior manager of culinary innovation, said that the Christmas Cookie shake has stayed on the menu year after year due to demand, and when Shake Shack tinkered with the recipe, fans let them know that they want it to remain untouched.
I’ll give them this: It certainly tastes like a sugar cookie in shake form. However, as just a mild lover of sugar cookies, this was just too sweet for me, although I was impressed at how accurate the flavor was.
In 10th place was the vanilla-and-chocolate shake.
This is exactly what it sounds like: vanilla and chocolate custard mixed together. It has 770 calories and costs $5.
This tasted like chocolate with a hint of vanilla, but not in a good way.
Maybe it’s because the chocolate was so overpowering compared to the vanilla, which can be more subtle, but this just tasted like a watered-down chocolate shake to me.
The chocolate shake was just slightly above that at No. 9.
This is just frozen chocolate custard. It’s $5 and 750 calories.
This was a flavorful chocolate shake, but I wasn’t overly impressed.
As a chocolate ice cream lover, I thought this was sure to place high. Instead, this chocolate shake was somewhat middling for me. I thought it had an artificial aftertaste, and I couldn’t take more than a couple of sips, something that never happens to me with chocolate ice cream.
But some chocolate is better than no chocolate, hence its spot at No. 9.
Next, the limited-edition Banana Pudding shake.
The Banana Pudding shake used banana custard made with “real banana,” per Shake Shack, and was mixed with vanilla wafer cookies. It was also topped with “vanilla wafer cookie crumble.”
It was priced at $6.99 and had 1,010 calories.
It was delicious, but the smell knocked it down a few spots in the ranking.
Ever since “Sex and the City” put Magnolia Bakery and its banana pudding on the map, I’ve always associated banana pudding with New York, and I’m a fan.
Banana-flavored anything can be divisive — remember how mad some people would get on Halloween if they got banana Laffy Taffy? — but I thought this was great.
It tasted like real bananas, the cookie crumble on top was good, and the cookies mixed in just added flavor, not a crumb-like texture in the shake.
Ranking a vanilla shake somewhere in the middle seems right.
The Shake Shack site writes that its vanilla shakes are made with “real vanilla” in the vanilla custard. One shake contains 680 calories and costs $5.
It was the creamiest shake I tried.
This was easily the creamiest, thickest shake I tried. Can you go wrong with a vanilla shake? It’s sweet, doesn’t have a strong aftertaste, and was the only one that actually felt like I was quenching any type of thirst.
However, it’s kind of bland, as many vanilla things are. So I can’t put it any higher.
I liked the crackable Peppermint Bark Chocolate shake better than the Dubai Chocolate one.
Another holiday offering, the Peppermint Bark Chocolate shake ($9.99, 1,320 calories) is chocolate custard that’s been infused with mint chocolate fudge encased in a crackable peppermint white chocolate shell.
It’s topped with whipped cream and little pieces of peppermint candy.
This tasted like winter to me.
Shake Shack’s second foray into the crackable shake space is, in my opinion, an improvement on the first. It was much easier to crack and pull out pieces of the shell.
My main critique of the Dubai Chocolate shake was that I didn’t really taste any chocolate. Since this was a chocolate shake infused with mint fudge, there was no missing either flavor.
Of course, not everyone likes mint chocolate, but if you find yourself grabbing a peppermint mocha every day of December, I’d give this a whirl.
In fifth place came the limited-edition Oreo Cookie Funnel Cake flavor.
The Oreo Cookie Funnel Cake shake was made with vanilla custard and “Oreo Cookies and funnel cake crunch” spun into the custard. It was topped with whipped cream and Oreo crumbles.
It had 1,140 calories — the second most of all the shakes I tried — and cost $6.99.
This, somehow, tasted exactly like a funnel cake you’d get at a local fair.
I was curious to see how this would taste different from the regular cookies-and-cream shake, but the two couldn’t have been more different.
Somehow, this just tasted exactly like a funnel cake you’d get at a carnival. It even had the sugary aftertaste, which I personally love. It brought me back to summer nights that I spent at my local town fair, licking powdered sugar off my fingers.
If I had to knock it, though, I didn’t really taste Oreo in the shake itself, though the crumbles on top somewhat made up for it.
Next up was the coffee shake.
After a five-year hiatus, the coffee shake was reintroduced to the permanent menu in September 2025, ahead of National Coffee Day.
It costs $5 and has 700 calories, and is made with vanilla custard mixed with dark roast coffee.
This was the platonic ideal of a coffee shake.
As a self-proclaimed coffee ice cream aficionado, I was a bit nervous to try this flavor. Sometimes, coffee-flavored products can taste artificial or too sweet, but I didn’t have to worry about that with this shake.
Simply put, this tasted like a frozen cup of coffee. If that sounds appealing to you, I’d recommend.
In third place came the limited-edition Sticky Toffee Pudding flavor.
This shake, another holiday flavor, has 930 calories and costs $6.99.
It’s made with a vanilla custard base, a piece of sticky toffee pudding cake, and caramelized brown sugar blended together, topped with whipped cream and a toffee pudding sauce.
This was delicious.
Of the three holiday flavors, I have the least experience with sticky toffee pudding, a British dessert. I was a bit worried I wouldn’t enjoy it, but my fears quickly vanished after the first sip.
To me, the molasses flavoring was like a gingerbread cookie, making it the perfect holiday treat. I also liked that I could feel the little pieces of cake mixed in, giving this an added textural dimension that some of the other shakes didn’t have.
In second place: the black-and-white shake.
This is vanilla custard mixed with chocolate fudge sauce.
It has 770 calories and costs $6.49.
This tasted like vanilla with a hint of chocolate, in a good way.
Full disclosure: Before doing this ranking, I thought that a black-and-white shake was just chocolate and vanilla mixed together. But no! It’s a vanilla shake mixed with chocolate sauce. I much preferred this.
It had more of a taste than a plain vanilla shake, but it didn’t have the watered-down quality of the vanilla-and-chocolate shake, which was overwhelmed by chocolate. This tasted like a hot fudge sundae.
I highly recommend.
And in first place — certainly not to my own surprise — was the cookies-and-cream shake.
The cookies-and-cream shake ($6.49 and 850 calories) is made with vanilla custard and spun with “chocolate cookie crumbles.”
This was, to put it plainly, so good.
In almost any scenario, I am ordering a cookies-and-cream shake. It’s been my go-to for years … but that just means that the Shake Shack shake had to live up to my high standards. And it did.
This tasted like drinking a mashed-up Oreo, which is all I ever want from a cookies-and-cream shake. It was creamy, not too sweet, and the texture of the cookie crumbles wasn’t off-putting in any way. It had just the right amount of crumbs.
I’d be fine with getting any of the top eight shakes, but cookies and cream will forever be my No. 1 choice.
Read the original article on Business Insider
The post I tried and ranked every shake at Shake Shack, including the new holiday flavors. A classic earned the No. 1 spot. appeared first on Business Insider.
