Are winter-themed drinks best served hot or cold? It’s a question as oft-debated as the true meaning of the season. The holidays are typically a quiet time for fast food brands and while there isn’t a lot of new food out there to tantalize our taste buds, there are a whole lot of winter-themed drinks (both hot and cold) to quench our thirst and indulge our sweet tooth. Sweet teeth? Whatever.
Whether you’re hitting up Starbucks or Shake Shack between shopping for your loved ones the drinks menu is where you’ll find the most innovation during the holiday months, but what’s the best holiday drink worth your time and money? We set out to find out by ordering every limited holiday-themed seasonal drink we could find across the fast food universe in search of the very best. Because temperatures vary so radically nationwide, there is thankfully a lot of variety out there, whether you love warm and cozy chocolate-based coffees and cinnamon-spiked teas to need something cool and refreshing like milkshakes and smoothies.
Without further ado, let’s dive into our ranking of the best winter and holiday-themed drinks you can pick up right now.
11. Dunkin’ — Toasted White Chocolate Signature Latte
Tasting Notes:
When a drink is coffee-based I tend to look for a balance between the sweeter notes and the natural coffee flavors, Dunkin’ clearly doesn’t follow the same philosophy. The Toasted White Chocolate Signature Latte is all about the sweetness, with a strong vanilla-heavy white chocolate body that is topped with caramel and sugar-spiked cinnamon on the whipped cream. There is the smallest hint of a coffee finish during the aftertaste, but it’s more bitter and flat than it is rich and complex like good coffee should be.
Still, if you like incredibly sweet drinks, this hits the spot. Personally, I found it too intensely sweet to fully finish.
The Bottom Line:
It tastes like white chocolate melted down and liquified, which might be what you’re after, but if you’re hoping to taste coffee, look elsewhere.
Find your nearest Dunkin here.
10. Wendy’s — Peppermint Frosty
Tasting Notes:
Let me start off by saying I think the new Peppermint Frosty is delicious! But I’m a little salty that Wendy’s made this a vanilla-based flavor rather than a chocolate-based one. The drink begins with a luxurious creamy vanilla-forward flavor with the slightest cool minty peppermint lift on the back end.
Wendy’s Frosty machine makes it so they can only make two Frosty flavors at once, so I understand why they didn’t want to temporarily cancel the chocolate Frosty for a seasonal drink, but I think it would’ve resulted in a much better drink overall. Oh well, I suppose we can dream what that would taste like.
The Bottom Line:
Vanilla smooth with a subtle minty lift on the aftertaste. It’s delicious but it could’ve been even better if Wendy’s was willing to take a chance.
Find your nearest Wendy’s here.
9. Arby’s — Caramel Cinnamon Shake
Tasting Notes:
Earthy and spicy, Arby’s Caramel Cinnamon Shake tastes sort of like a churro with earthy caramel syrup drizzled all over it. The shake has a luxuriously creamy vanilla body with a sugary-sweet flavor that combines brown sugar with some nutty richness. The flavors come very close to matching horchata, but the caramel masks a lot of the creamy character.
I wish there was a more pronounced and spicy cinnamon flavor to it to add some balance against the intense sweetness, but it’s kind of hard to hate on something that tastes this much like a churro.
The Bottom Line:
Heavy on caramel, this milkshake is deliciously brown sugar-sweet but lacks the promise of complexity that cinnamon would suggest.
Find your nearest Arby’s here.
8. Jamba Juice — Merry Orange Cranberry
Tasting Notes:
If you’ve never walked into a Jamba Juice you might think that the juice chain is some sort of health nut haven. But for every legitimately healthy drink on the menu, there is an equally unhealthy sugar-infused drink with a jaw-dropping amount of calories. The White Gummy, the Peanut Butter Moo’d, these drinks have more than a day’s worth of sugar packed into a single drink, and the new Merry Orange Cranberry falls into this camp. For one, it doesn’t have any actual fruit in it, just orange juice, a cranberry-flavored base, a scoop of orange sherbet, and coconut-infused whipped cream.
A single small cup of this packs over 400 calories and 65 grams of sugar, you might as well be drinking two Coca-Colas. Having said all that… it’s f*cking delicious. It has that intense fresh-squeezed orange juice flavor elevated with a tart cranberry finish that’ll make you salivate after a single sip.
The Bottom Line:
The only reason to dip into Jamba Juice during the winter months.
Find your nearest Jamba Juice here.
7. Jack in the Box — Frozen Hot Cocoa Shake
Tasting Notes:
At first glance, JiB’s Frozen Hot Cocoa Shake seems totally redundant considering there is already a chocolate milkshake on the menu, but this is a significant improvement over the stock chocolate. Both flavors rely on a thick vanilla base infused with chocolate, but the Frozen Hot Cocoa Shake features a toasted marshmallow component to it that makes it taste much more pleasing and complex. It has that chalky finish that is characteristic of marshmallows with some slightly caramelized notes on the aftertaste.
Instead of the typical cherry, JiB tops the whipped cream with a dusting of cocoa powder. It’s pretty solid and much better than JiB’s fall-only Basic Witch Shake.
The Bottom Line:
Everything you love about hot chocolate, frozen.
Find your nearest Jack in the Box here.
6. McDonald’s — Oreo Fudge McFlurry
Tasting Notes:
I’m not sure if this really counts as a holiday drink considering McDonald’s has all the ingredients on hand to make this year around, but for whatever reason, it’s only available for a limited time, so we’re counting it. The Oreo Fudge McFlurry is a simple combination of McDonald’s fudge sundae and the Oreo McFlurry, with a combination of vanilla soft serve, hot chocolate fudge, and Oreos blended throughout.
The Oreos and hot fudge combine to deliver two different forms of chocolate flavor with the vanilla serving as a creamy counterbalance to offset the intense chocolatey richness. I’m not entirely sure why this isn’t on the menu year-round, I assume it started as some sort of dessert menu hack, but if that were the case Mcdonald’s would make you order the ingredients separately and put it together yourself.
The Bottom Line:
A perfect combination of McDonald’s two best dessert orders.
Find your nearest McDonald’s here.
5. Dairy Queen — Snickers Brownie Blizzard Treat
Tasting Notes:
For the holidays DQ serves the Oreo Hot Cocoa Blizzard, the Very Cherry Chip Blizzard, the Reeses Take Five Blizzard, and the Snickers Brownie Blizzard, and I’m still not sure if going with the latter was the right choice, but that tastes to me the best of the bunch. It combines the nougat, caramel, and chocolate combo of the Snickers with some rich brownie goodness resulting in a spoonable Snickers that tastes a bit more chocolate-forward than a bar of the real thing.
Still, I have to knock this drink down a few pegs because, well, it’s not really a drink. Blizzards are best enjoyed via a spoon so I’m not entirely sure this counts for this ranking and aside from that, it doesn’t taste quite as good as a Snickers. For this to be ranked any higher, it would have to taste like more than the sum of its parts and… it doesn’t.
The Bottom Line:
Very good but not quite as good as an actual Snickers bar.
Find your nearest Dairy Queen here.
4. Starbucks — Peppermint Mocha
Tasting Notes:
There are Starbucks fans that wait all year to order this holiday treat and you know what? We get it. Starbucks’ Peppermint Mocha Latte is easily the best iteration of this drink on the fast food market. Nobody does it better. The latte features rich and luxurious chocolate notes that shift into a supremely cool and refreshing lift at the aftertaste.
It’s perfectly balanced between rich and refreshing. For some extra flair, Starbucks tops this drink with curls of dark chocolate that melt into the drink and add an extra infusion of chocolatey goodness. If Starbucks had better espresso instead of the bitter flat flavor of their stock roast, this might be in the running for the greatest holiday drink of all time.
The Bottom Line:
The best iteration of the Peppermint Mocha flavor combination in the entire fast food universe.
Find your nearest Starbucks here.
3. Shake Shack — Christmas Cookie Shake
Tasting Notes:
Holy shit is this thing sweet. If you love sugar cookies so much you’d want to drink them, this is your milkshake. It features that same vanilla-heavy shortbread flavor of sugar cookies but trades in the dry and chalky texture for something smooth and rich. It’s almost dangerously drinkable. To top off the drink Shake Shack adds thick whipped cream with holiday sugar sprinkles. It’s entirely too sweet, and don’t be surprised if you find yourself unable to finish the full drink (I couldn’t) but as much of it you do drink, will be delicious.
It almost tastes like pure cookie dough — delicious in sips but it can quickly become overwhelming.
The Bottom Line:
Almost too much of a good thing. Almost.
Find your nearest Shake Shack here.
2. Coffee Bean — Winter Dream Tea Latte
Tasting Notes:
While Starbucks fans wait all year to sip on some Peppermint Mocha, I reach for Coffee Bean’s Winter Dream Latte. Imagine Chai tea without the cardamom and a heavier emphasis on cinnamon and allspice and you’ll get a sense of what Winter Dream tastes like. The tea is a mixture of allspice, star anise, cinnamon, black tea, and rooibos red tea, giving it a balance of spicy and earthy flavors sweetened by Coffee Bean’s vanilla powder.
A splash of milk adds a creamy component to it, resulting in a drink that is equal parts spicy, sweet, and rich.
The Bottom Line:
It tastes like the holidays in a cup. This is the perfect winter hot drink.
Find your nearest Coffee Bean here.
1. Chick-fil-A — Peppermint Chip Milkshake
Tasting Notes:
As much as I love Coffee Bean’s Winter Dream tea latte, I live in Southern California, so it’s never not a good time to indulge in a frozen treat, even during the winter. Chick-fil-A’s Peppermint Chip milkshake is the perfect holiday drink — combining Chick-fil-A’s Ice Cream vanilla base with chips of blended peppermint perfectly distributed throughout the shake. There isn’t a sip of this thing that doesn’t contain bits of peppermint in it, resulting in a mint flavor that dominates the drink.
Generally, holiday drinks use peppermint as a feature, not a focus, resulting in something that takes the backseat to whatever flavor it’s paired with, usually only experienced as part of the aftertaste. The Peppermint Chip milkshake isn’t like that, it prominently features peppermint at the forefront, resulting in one of the most refreshing milkshakes I’ve ever had from first sip to last. If Chick-fil-A ever figures out a way to add chocolate to their Ice Dream, this may go down as one of the greatest milkshakes of all time.
The Bottom Line:
The only holiday drink that prominently features peppermint at the forefront this will be one of the most refreshing and throat-soothing milkshakes you’ll ever have. However, if you’re not a fan of peppermint as a flavor, you’re probably better off with our number two choice.
Find your nearest Chick-fil-A here.