Americans have been ordering chocolate milkshakes for over a century, and the drink they think they know started as something almost unrecognizable. Chocolate recently reclaimed the country’s favorite ice cream flavor, and the thick, familiar glass that features it best has an origin story few people have ever heard. The original recipe has a genuine surprise, and so does the reason chocolate keeps coming back to the top.
One of the earliest known printed uses of the word “milkshake,” dating to the mid-1880s, described an eggnog-style cocktail made with eggs, cream and whiskey, and marketed as a health tonic. By 1900, the name had moved to nonalcoholic drinks made with milk and flavoring syrups, with chocolate, vanilla and strawberry among the most common at soda fountains.
The version Americans order every Sept. 12 for National Chocolate Milkshake Day traces to 1922, when Walgreens employee Ivar “Pop” Coulson modified a standard malted milk drink at a Chicago location by adding scoops of vanilla ice cream. The drink was poured into a glass filled about two-thirds, topped with whipped cream, the remaining malt served alongside in the mixing container. Customers packed several rows deep around the soda fountain to order it.
Chocolate takes the top spot back from vanilla
A national survey of more than 2,200 adults found that chocolate has reclaimed the No. 1 spot as America’s favorite ice cream flavor, overtaking vanilla, which held the top position in 2024. Butter pecan surpassed vanilla for second. Two entirely new entries broke into the top five for the first time, with cookies and cream and caramel or salted caramel both earning spots they had never held before.
Across the full sample, 97% of adults said they love or like ice cream, and hot fudge came in as the top topping at 31%. Flavor was the most important consideration, with 72% of adults calling it very important, which helps explain how a taste as established as chocolate can reclaim the top spot even as newer options crowd the list.
The ice cream truck still wins the nostalgia vote
The same survey asked Americans to name their most “American” ice cream memory. The top answer, selected by 29% of respondents, was hearing the neighborhood ice cream truck. Birthday party ice cream cake came in second at 21%. The chocolate milkshake belongs to that same emotional territory, tied to soda fountains, diner counters and summer afternoons when something cold and sweet was the only plan that mattered.
That Walgreens serving method from 1922 is still recognizable at old-school diners and ice cream parlors. The glass comes out two-thirds full, a tin with the extra sits alongside and a straw goes in. More than a century of milkshakes, and the ritual has barely changed.
Chocolate keeps winning the flavor race
Chocolate’s return to No. 1 happened while the rest of the top five was also changing around it. Cookies and cream and caramel or salted caramel both broke in for the first time, and both offer richer, more layered profiles than the classics above them. Chocolate still came out on top. The milkshake format plays a role in that. Blending concentrates chocolate’s flavor in a way a single scoop in a bowl cannot match, and the cold, the weight of the glass, the ritual of the straw all turn a flavor preference into a full experience. Every other format presents chocolate as one option among many. The milkshake lets chocolate be the entire point.
Nostalgia and novelty on the same list
Americans keep reaching for the flavors that carry the most personal history, even as the options around them multiply. The nostalgia dessert moment that brought vanilla milkshakes back into focus this past June extends to chocolate just as naturally, and the survey data behind both stories comes from the same source. Classic flavors and bolder new entrants are sharing the top five at the same time, with room for both on the list.
The milkshake is the format that has carried those flavors longest, from pharmacy counter to Walgreens soda fountain to drive-through window to the kitchen counter at home. The classic combination of milk, ice cream and flavoring has stayed recognizable for generations. What changes is who picks it up and when.
A recipe that got it right in 1922
The chocolate milkshake will outlast whatever flavor trend follows it next. The top five is changing, but chocolate has been among America’s leading ice cream flavors for generations and just took the No. 1 spot back. The recipe was right from the start. It earned a century of proof, and it is still earning it now.
Mandy writes about food, home and the kind of everyday life that feels anything but ordinary. She has traveled extensively, and those experiences have shaped everything, from comforting meals to small lifestyle upgrades that make a big difference. You’ll find all her favorite recipes over at Hungry Cooks Kitchen.