The drink Americans have been ordering for over a century started as something almost unrecognizable. What began at a pharmacy counter worked its way to the soda fountain, picked up ice cream along the way, and turned into the thick, familiar glass that still shows up on every diner menu in the country. The chocolate milkshake has been earning its place for generations. It just took the top spot back to prove it.
The earliest known printed use of the word “milkshake,” dating to the mid-1880s, described an eggnog-style cocktail made with eggs, cream and whiskey, sold as a health tonic. By 1900, it had gone nonalcoholic and landed at the soda fountain.
In 1922, a Walgreens employee named Ivar “Pop” Coulson added scoops of vanilla ice cream to a standard malted milk drink at a Chicago location. The glass came out two-thirds full, topped with whipped cream, with the remaining malt served alongside in the mixing tin. Customers packed several rows deep around the counter to order it. That serving method is still recognizable at old-school diners today.
Chocolate Just Took the Top Spot Back
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 jumped to second. Cookies and cream and caramel or salted caramel both broke into the top five for the first time. The list is changing around chocolate, and chocolate is still coming out on top.
Flavor was the most important purchase consideration for 72% of respondents. Hot fudge came in as the top topping at 31%. And 29% of adults named hearing the neighborhood ice cream truck as their most American ice cream memory. The chocolate milkshake belongs to that same territory.
The Milkshake Is Why Chocolate Wins
Every other format presents chocolate as one option among many. The milkshake lets it be the entire point. Blending concentrates the flavor in a way a single scoop in a bowl cannot match. Add the cold, the weight of the glass and the ritual of the straw, and a flavor preference becomes a full experience. The nostalgia moment that brought vanilla milkshakes back into focus this past June extends to chocolate just as naturally. Classic flavors and bolder new entrants are sharing the top five at the same time, and there’s room for both.
National Chocolate Milkshake Day is Sept. 12. The recipe has been right since 1922. It has earned a century of proof, and it is still earning it now.