You say ‘hand shaken’ and I hear ‘blah’.

Yesterday I saw a commercial for a “hand stirred” fruit milkshake smoothie of some sort new at Wendy’s. As someone who’s worked at Starbucks (albeit happily) for much longer than intended, I’ve seen plenty of the “hand shaken” or “hand stirred” nonsense. Why do advertisers see it as such a great selling point at mass produced locations?

First off, it’s Wendy’s for goodness sake. While the company probably encourages excellence and performance, it’s still fast food. It’s still food that you can drive up to a window and receive in less than three minutes. It’s food that has been demographically selected and manufactured for the entire nation to enjoy at every Wendy’s location on every street corner from the ghetto to the suburbs. You aren’t getting personal or gourmet.

Second off, the people making these things don’t have the expertise and aren’t given enough money to care about shaking, stirring, or whatever is required of them. When it comes down to it, time is everything. The faster you get your food, the happier you are. Managers know it. Employees know it.

Third, and most relevantly, having worked in semi “fast food” and been given instructions on “hand shaken” beverages, I know that it means squat. Starbucks is higher quality than most places out there, but we still take quite a liberty with those personal touches to your drinks. If we ring 30 transactions a half an hour on an average day, that’s at the very least 30 drinks, more realistically beyond double that. Yes, your drink will be made well, I can promise you that, but those fancy personal touches that are advertised aren’t always part of the process.

Now step it down to real fast food like Wendy’s. Don’t even think that they are going to take the time out to do anything personal to your beverage, except spit in it if you piss them off.

Here’s the long and short of it: Unless you are paying top dollar from a restaurant or professional, “hand shaken” means nothing.

Carl’s gets Crunch-a-tized!

Forget your breakfast smoothie, grab yourself Carl’s Jr’s newest indulgence, Cap’n Crunch Shakes & Malts.

It’s breakfast cereal in a blender and for the first few sips, it’s the most heavenly drink an eight-year old (or eight-year old at heart) could ever fathom. Unfortunately, there is a reason why milk is only poured into the bowl immediately before consumption.

Good news first: After ordering the malt and enjoying french fries on the side, I am a big fan of breakfast cereal milkshakes. The sweet cereal went quite nicely with the malt. I’m pretty sure the concoction is just a vanilla malt/shake with Captain Crunch blended in. Simple, yet delicious.

Bad news: You have to drink it quickly. Within 10 minutes the cereal in the malt had gone soggy. I guess the Cap’n isn’t so successful at battling off the evil “soggies” when up against a thicker dairy. The malt became just plain vanilla, occasionally sucking up a mushy chunk. It was too gross to finish.

Overall, I really love this idea of breakfast cereal milkshakes (if you can drink them fast). The fact that you can get Cap’n Crunch, the world’s most tasty breakfast cereal, at a drive through window is downright genius. It’s really yummy and I would definitely recommend giving it a try.