This summer has been declared the Summer of Shakes by Sonic Drive-Ins. Around the country, they are offering a wide variety of inexpensive and oftentimes creative milkshakes. Locally, this is particularly hilarious as news just broke that we will be home to a Cook Out franchise in upcoming months.
For those of you who haven't heard of Cook Out, it's a family-owned restaurant out of Greensboro, NC that makes "cook out food" - hamburgers, Eastern NC barbeque, hot dogs - and some of the best milkshakes I've ever tasted. All of their food is inexpensive, comforting, quickly expedited. And with a milkshake menu that boasts over 40 tempting flavors, Sonic should be worried.
A few weeks ago, we stopped at Sonic for the childhood favorite strawberry shakes, but upon seeing the new expanded menu, decided to try something different. Jordan got a chocolate cheesecake milkshake and I went out on a limb and tried the peanut butter and bacon shake (oddly, I thought PB&J was just too weird).
I instantly had buyer's remorse and awaited what I knew would be a hellacious stomachache. However, I was pleasantly surprised.
To me, and probably anyone who has ever dabbled in Thai cuisine, peanuts and peanut butter are not exclusively sweet flavors. And surprisingly, in this shake, the bacon played the part of the sweet element moreso than the peanut butter.
The milkshake tasted overwhelmingly of peanut butter; so if you don't LOVE that flavor, I'd advise against it. But there were finely chopped slices of bacon - I'd imagine they use three to four tablespoons of bacon (not to be confused with bacon bits) in each shake. As I didn't go back into the kitchen, I can't guarantee that anything was added to the bacon, but it's crispyness and sweetness lead me to believe it was somehow candied; which was beautiful - you got salty notes that paired well with the peanut butter and concentrated sweetness and crunch too.
I really enjoy the combination of salty and sweet in foods like kettle corn or salted caramel and to me, this ratio was spot on. Too often savory/sweet fusions become muddled by forgetting the original intention of the dish. But this one "remembered" it was meant to be a dessert and didn't dip too far into the salt zone.
However, as a collegiate Cook Out connoisseur, I do believe that production of milkshakes is an area of cooking with little quality control. The slightest change in the ratio of vanilla ice cream to flavoring(s) can yield completely different shakes; and the same thing goes for mixing times. The variability of milkshakes is much greater than that of pre-packaged (and often pre-cooked) items with specific recipes. So I do believe that this milkshake and what I found to be a perfect balance of salty:sweet could easily be thrown off.
My only complaint with this item was its presentation. Sure, a styrofoam cup and dome lid don't really leave much to the imagination and the retro stylings of Sonic Drive-Ins are both trite and confining, but from a visual stand-point, this looked like any old beige milkshake. First things first, not every shake needs to come with a maraschino cherry. That may be a personal bias (those things are awful), but they also don't pair well with peanut butter or bacon. The dollop of what I can only assume is non-dairy whipped cream (it wouldn't melt!) is cute and added a little 50's flair but would have been more delicious and made the shake more identifiable with a little sprinkling of bacon. If the cream pie shakes get graham cracker crumbs, why can't this come with pork crumbs?
Overall, I think taking a chance on this odd menu item was worth the $1.50 and is even something I might consider ordering again if I'm ever in the mood for PB&P (peanut butter & pig).
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