What is it?

The Reese’s Take 5 Blizzard is the August Blizzard of the Month, and Dairy Queen says it’s the first time ever that its signature treat contains five flavors, even if the math is a little fuzzy, as I’ll explain. This doesn’t contain pulverized Reese’s Take 5 bars but instead mimics the candy with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, caramel topping, peanuts, and pretzel pieces.

How is it?

It’s a touch disappointing if I’m being honest, and I don’t mess around with dishonesty when I’m talking about Blizzards. Before trying this, I was certain it would land at or near the top of my list of all-time favorites, but it comes up a little short.

For me, there’s just a bit too much going on, and perhaps that’s why DQ has never put five ingredients in a Blizzard. And I’m not even counting this as five flavors anyway. In an actual Take 5 bar, there are five parts, as the milk chocolate lovingly embraces and surrounds the pretzels, peanuts, peanut butter, and caramel, while this Blizzard uses peanut butter cups. Yes, I know PB cups contain peanut butter and chocolate, but for reasons I can’t articulate fully, I just can’t count that as two things.

As for how this tastes, the peanut butter flavor gets lost in the mix, which doesn’t quite seem right for something branded as Reese’s. The pretzels do give it a nice salty component to offset the sweetness, but again, the pretzel taste is hard to distinguish as the pieces have the same kind of crunch as the peanuts. And stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the caramel flavor is somewhat sparse because it’s fighting for attention against all its Take 5 friends. The four (or five) ingredients still combine for a pleasant taste experience, but instead of being distinctive, it’s almost more generic, like it should just be called a chocolatey peanutty Blizzard.

Anything else you need to know?

I guess I haven’t followed candy bar branding closely in recent years because I didn’t realize that this bar was simply called TAKE5 until the “Reese’s” name was added in 2019. Also, Hershey’s needs to hire a proofreader for its website because on the same page, it alternates between a space and no space in TAKE 5 (and the DQ website doesn’t use all caps, so I have no idea what the official name really is). Regardless, Hershey’s has said that the peanut butter in the bar has always been Reese’s since it debuted in 2004.

Conclusion:

Even if you ignore the minor mathematical issues with this Blizzard, it doesn’t quite add up to a perfect 10. It’s good — actually very good — but it’s a classic case of more is not always better.

Purchased Price: $4.49
Size: Small
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Small) 770 calories, 34 grams of fat, 15 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 580 milligrams of sodium, 99 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 76 grams of sugar, and 21 grams of protein.

What is it?

Dairy Queen’s Caramel Drumstick with Peanuts Blizzard is proof that whoever decides the new Blizzard flavors used a bunch of vacation time recently because this “new” treat isn’t really that new. It’s similar to the Nestle Drumstick Blizzard we reviewed a couple years ago with Drumstick pieces and peanuts, except this version adds caramel (and drops the Nestle name). DQ is also offering a Drumstick Blizzard without caramel.

How is it?

I gave the original Drumstick Blizzard a 9-rating, and the addition of caramel to this version is an improvement, so the laws of math dictate that I must give this a perfect 10!

I’d also like to congratulate the DQ person who greenlit this flavor for getting maximum results with minimal effort, which is something I strive for every day. This might not be how it actually happened, but I can’t help thinking the Chief Executive of Blizzards was on a beach in Tahiti when his or her phone rang. It was DQ headquarters asking what the next new flavor was going to be. Now this person didn’t get into their position without being a quick thinker, so they pretended like all kinds of extensive research and focus group interviews went into this new flavor, even though all they did was add caramel to that Drumstick Blizzard from two years ago. OK, maybe that’s not how it went, but the results are wonderful just the same.

The best parts of this Blizzard are the Drumstick pieces, which are waffle cone squares covered in chocolate. The cone pieces remained delightfully crunchy inside their little chocolate blankets and the peanuts, which were pulverized into tiny morsels, added a bit of a different texture and a subtle but welcome saltiness. Then the caramel jumps in and hits you with a rich, creamy sweetness that makes this one of my all-time favorite Blizzards.

Anything else you need to know?

This flavor appears to just be a late addition to the DQ Summer Blizzard Menu rather than officially being named the July Blizzard of the Month (even though it was launched on July 1). So this flavor will probably hang around until at least the end of August.

Conclusion:

Even with Blizzards that I really enjoy, I can usually come up with at least a minor gripe or a suggestion to make it just a little bit better. In this case, I really can’t, and I’ll be sad to see this one go, whenever that might be.

Purchased Price: $4.49
Size: Small
Rating: 10 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Small) 690 calories, 33 grams of fat, 22 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 45 milligrams of cholesterol, 250 milligrams of sodium, 82 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 66 grams of sugar, and 16 grams of protein.

What is Dairy Queen’s S’mores Shake?

DQ’s latest shake mimics the flavors of the classic campfire treat. It has vanilla soft serve blended with marshmallow topping, chocolate flakes, and graham cracker bits.

How is it?

The first thing I tried to figure out was what the little grainy pieces were. They were so tiny that I couldn’t discern much flavor. Were they chocolate bits or graham cracker bits? When I had drunk more of the shake and could see beyond the whipped topping, it was clear that the really tiny bits were the graham and the larger flakes were chocolate.

Flavor-wise, it’s a giant marshmallow-flavored kick in the face. There’s no subtlety here, not that I wanted any. The graham bits and chocolate flakes added enough texture to create a nice mouthfeel, but the marshmallow flavor of the product still overwhelmed the graham and chocolate notes. Strangely as I got deeper into the shake, the chocolate pieces were bigger, and it added more chocolatey-ness to the experience.

This is a thick shake, so thick that I sometimes had trouble sucking it up with my straw. This isn’t Wendy’s Frosty “Give up on straws, you need a spoon here” territory, but it’s getting there.

For some reason, this shake didn’t strike me as being as addictive as the shakes from Five Guys, currently my go-to for milkshakes. It’s good, but it just doesn’t have that same “OMG I have to shovel this in my face immediately!” quality. What’s the secret? Perhaps the quality of the base dairy product? Clearly, I need to do more research on this topic and drink many, many more shakes — for science.

I should note that the shake is very sweet, but let’s be honest: I’m a person who reviews milkshakes from Dairy Queen. If “too sweet” were ever an issue, I probably would not be in the milkshake-review game.

Anything else you need to know?

Dairy Queen’s website tells us that “One sip and you’re sure to be left wanting s’more,” so you can be satisfied that no opportunity to make that old-as-the-hills pun was spared. It’s not a lie though; I finished my whole shake and I still kind of want s’more. Having any more at this point would probably make me sick, but I still want it.

Conclusion:

The S’mores shake is a very respectable attempt to turn the gooey, classic summer snack into a drinkable delight. It’s a little one-note, but fortunately it’s a tasty note.

Purchased Price: $4.79
Size: 8 oz (small)
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 640 calories, 32 grams of fat, 21 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 40 milligrams of cholesterol, 240 milligrams of sodium, 77 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 64 grams of sugar, and 12 grams of protein.