We're halfway through Fitness Week here at OnMilwaukee, and after writing about stuff like running and healthy eating habits and workout blocks, I think we've earned the right to indulge ourselves a little bit. And you know what sounds good? A nice, tasty, simple milkshake.
Oh, sweet Jesus, what the hell is that?!
Does anybody else's heart hurt? Like a really, really bad tightness right in your heart place?
It may be hard to tell, but these horrific weapons of mass diabetes, first unearthed in a Buzzfeed post Monday, are technically milkshakes – but like if a milkshake ate another milkshake and then blew itself up with Pop Rocks and soda.
These monstrosities are a product of Black Tap, a craft burger and beer restaurant with two locations in New York City (one in Soho and one in the Meatpacking district). The first one seems to come piled with the city of Hershey, Pennsylvania. The second piles a cookie and a ice cream cookie sandwich on top of a heap of cookie dough (what? No Cookie Crisp too?) while that last one – the Birthday Cake Milkshake – comes with a literal slab of cake on top. And, if you look really closely at each image, you'll notice that there's a milkshake in each photo too.
Take it from somebody who's currently enjoying a balanced lunch of two snack bags of Gardetto's and a bottle of Tahitian Treat, whose mouth assumes anything green entering it must be artificially green apple or lime flavored, who ate a two-foot long Korean beef sandwich in Texas and whose future autopsy in about, eh, seven months will reveal that his cause of death was that all of his organs were replaced by Skittles, Dr. Pepper and Hot Pockets: These milkshakes seem a little much.
Sure, the idea of a milkshake covered in so much ice cream, cotton candy, gum balls and lollypops that it looks like the lovechild of a Sobelman's Bloody Mary and a coked up Katy Perry SOUNDS like a genius idea, but actually look at it:
My blood turned into sludge just looking at that. Who can eat all of that? Who WANTS to eat all of that? And what kind of insane Daniel Plainview-inspired milkshake periscope would you need to actually get down in there and, you know, drink your milkshake? Dyson could probably sponsor some sort of special suction straw for this here Black Tap establishment.
Of course, sharing is assumably the best method for these milkshakes, but even then, if I ordered a milkshake, I want to drink my milkshake. And who in your group is going to be able to stomach some milkshake AND a slab of cake or a giant cookie? And how messy is this whole operation going to end up being? Plus, according to an interview with Huffington Post, Black Tap has had one-to-two hour lines for these milkshake monoliths since their debut in late November. For a milkshake that costs (gulp) $15! We've come a long way since Vincent Vega complained about a paltry $5 milkshake in "Pulp Fiction" – and that one barely had any whipped cream!
Will the insane shake become a nationwide sensation, like the froyo frenzy and the cronut craze and whatever other food fads have come and gone recently? Unlikely. I can't see this showing up in Milwaukee. Asking customers to cough up $15 for a milkshake – no matter the decor – wouldn't likely play well anywhere other than New York (maybe Los Angeles and Las Vegas). And unless there's some pretty miraculous cows working behind the scenes, I can't imagine the shake itself is all that much to scream about. They'll get novelty visits, but I can't imagine repeat business will rake in much of a profit.
Guess we'll just have to quench our thirst for extravagant beverages with those Sobelman full-chicken Bloody Marys.
Instead of paying, you could also seemingly make your own version of these crazy concoctions pretty easily – though I think I'd be too tired after stacking all of that stuff to bother eating it.
For now, however, these milkshakes are bringing all the boys to the yard, and they're like, "We're going to need more boys."
As much as it is a gigantic cliché to say that one has always had a passion for film, Matt Mueller has always had a passion for film. Whether it was bringing in the latest movie reviews for his first grade show-and-tell or writing film reviews for the St. Norbert College Times as a high school student, Matt is way too obsessed with movies for his own good.
When he's not writing about the latest blockbuster or talking much too glowingly about "Piranha 3D," Matt can probably be found watching literally any sport (minus cricket) or working at - get this - a local movie theater. Or watching a movie. Yeah, he's probably watching a movie.
