National Coffee Milkshake Day - July 26, 2024

On National Coffee Milkshake Day on July 26, drink a cool beverage that will really hit the spot. It’s hot, you love ice cream and you can use a caffeinated, sugary boost. To your rescue comes the delicious, coffee milkshake — a product of sheer human culinary ingenuity. National Coffee Milkshake Day encourages you to enjoy a true coffee milkshake mixed with your favorite ice cream and coffee flavors. Discover the taste of summer!

National Coffee Milkshake Day timeline

1930s

Rhode Island premieres the coffee milkshake

The pharmacy, Delekta's, adds ice cream to coffee and milk to create coffee milkshakes.

Early 1900s

American milkshakes appear

They're described as "wholesome drinks made with chocolate, strawberry or vanilla syrups" with ice cream added, of course.

1773

Coffee comes to America

The Boston Tea Party protest prompts colonial American citizens to make the switch from tea to coffee as part of their patriotic duty.

Mid-15th Century

Coffee tree appears in Yemen

Coffee beans are finally exported from Ethiopia and cultivated in Yemeni Sufi monasteries.

850 AD

Coffee plant discovered in Ethiopia

An Abyssinian goatherd named Kaldi discovers goats eating coffee berries and brings them to local monks, who cultivate the plant and start chewing the berries for energy.

5 Global Coffee Milkshake Variations

Italian Espresso

Blend with home-brewed espresso and a drop of lemon extract.

Vietnamese Coffee

Blend coconut ice cream, sweetened with condensed milk and dark coffee ice cubes.

Mexican Café de Olla

Use dark-roasted coffee, cinnamon and orange extract.

Moroccan Coffee

Use coffee with cardamom, black pepper, cinnamon, clove and nutmeg.

Tennessee Coffee

Add an ounce each of Irish Cream, coffee liqueur and whiskey to your shake.

National Coffee Milkshake Day Activities

Make up your own mouth-watering concoctions

This is an easy one. Just find the recipe that works for you. Are you looking for recipes wih milk and coffee-flavored ice cream or for something entirely different, like instant hot coffee blended with chocolate? Do you consider yourself a connoisseur who insists on using cold-brewed coffee, top-shelf vanilla ice cream and homemade chocolate syrup? Take your pick — but make it thick!

Taste-test your recipe with friends

Taste tests are the best. Uncover the nuances of what seems like an ordinary beverage recipe — coffee milkshakes. Get some cooking buddies together along with a few neutral tester-friends and blend up your individual coffee shake masterpieces. Find out which version wins the title of World's Tastiest Coffee Milkshake.

Indulge in a classic "coffee cabinet" at Delekta's

Delekta's is an old-school soda fountain and pharmacy in Warren, Rhode Island. Delekta's developed its version of a coffee milkshake sometime before World War II. Italian immigrants boosted coffee syrup production until it matched the state's output of dairy production. Delekta's eventually added ice cream to the coffee beverage. The folks at Delekta's believe that the "coffee cabinet" hearkens back to the days when the drink's inventor kept his blender and coffee syrup in an actual cabinet.

Why We Love National Coffee Milkshake Day

They're delicious

Coffee, ice cream, milk and flavored syrup — simple ingredients with a high "wow" factor on National Coffee Milkshake Day. When the days are unbearably hot, a coffee milkshake rocks. But this is also one of the special times when knocking back a coffee milkshake makes a body feel good on warm, summer nights, too.

You can spice it up

Think about it. You can flavor your coffee milkshake with any of the gourmet variations you like in your regular coffee. Try it with mocha or Turkish. Experiment with adding cinnamon, cardamom, honey or garam masala. And of course, the adults in the room can add their alcoholic beverage of choice to pack their coffee milkshake with a punch.

Frappucinos taste good but coffee milkshakes taste even better

Starbucks' Frappucinos are delicious, light, lovely milk-based things that can give you a boost during your lunch break. But — oh, that ice cream! If July 26 falls on an off day when you can use a cup of coffee but you don't need to be on-your-toes alert; nothing complements coffee like a sweet scoop of vanilla ice cream. A perfect coffee milkshake blows every other beverage off the map.

Also on Fri Jul 26, 2024...