The Real Difference Between A McFlurry And A Blizzard

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing us that ice cream was a drink. It goes by many names, but the milkshake has been in our lives since at least 1885, when the word first appeared in print, according to Hamilton Beach. In those glorious days, a milkshake referred to an eggnog-like whiskey drink (a prelude to the "hard shakes" [per Food & Wine] of today's culinary scene, perhaps?) but the word eventually came to encompass any blend of ice cream, milk, and some sort of sweet flavoring. When Hamilton Beach came in with the invention of the drink mixer in 1911, it wasn't long before milk was being shaken at incredible rates across America.

Fast food restaurants were late adopters of the ice-cream-as-a-drink mentality, but when they finally embraced it, the story goes that choirs of angels could be heard singing "cha-ching" from on high. Dairy Queen was the first to add a milkshake to their menu in 1949, and McDonald's followed suit with "triple thick milkshakes" shortly thereafter. Those early shakes would (soft-) serve as inspiration for what would eventually become the Blizzard and McFlurry, respectively, that we know so well today. Not milkshakes, per se, says Bon Appétit, but "frozen treats" (as they are made with soft serve as opposed to ice cream) that may look similar, but whose histories have very different mix-ins.

According to McDonald's Fandom, the McFlurry was invented by Ron McLellan in 1995. A Canadian franchisee, McLellan is credited with what has to be one of Canada's greatest contribution to humanity, outside of Martin Short and the Barenaked Ladies. McDonald's Canada tells us that the very first McFlurry was served in Bathurst, New Brunswick in 1995, and what a glorious day that must have been. Aside from some negative press in Europe a few years ago surrounding hedgehog entrapment, McFlurries have been enjoying a blissful, flurried existence ever since.

McFlurry math is simple: take a cup of soft serve vanilla ice cream, add the topping of your choice, and mix it all together. The icy, white base whips around the machine with chunks of your desired sweets flying through the mixture like, well, a snow flurry. The original McFlurry offered five mix-ins: Oreo, Butterfinger, Heath, Nestle's Crunch, and M&M (via McDonald's Fandom). These days, the options are almost impossible to nail down, as new flavors and promotions are constantly shifting at your local golden arches. CTV News cites the stroopwafel flavor in the Netherlands and the Himalayan Tea flavor in Singapore among the cooler iterations of the 'Flurry.

The Blizzard has been Dairy Queen's hit song since 1985. In fact, the chart-topper sold 175 million copies that first year, according to Eat This, Not That!. The principle is the same as the McDonald's frozen creation: take soft serve ice cream, add a topping, and blend hard. Whip it into a candied frenzy, with white, icy tufts of soft serve flying briefly through the air. The original Blizzard was a combination of crushed cookies, candy, and not-quite-ice-cream, and created such a flurry of excitement that The New York Times ran a story on its success in 1986.

Like its Micky D's counterpart, the Blizzard was invented by a plucky franchisee, this one made in the USA. Samuel J. Temperato owned 67 Dairy Queens in the St. Louis area before getting an epiphany about throwing more stuff into his milkshakes, an idea which Temperato, in turn, credited to the popular frozen custard shops in the area. At the time of publication, The New York Times mentioned that companies like M&M/Mars refused to compromise the integrity of their bars (or, lower the bar, if you will) by crushing up perfectly good candy before sending it to DQs across the country. Hence, in the old days, the good people of Dairy Queen had to break down the candy mix-ins by hand before throwing them into the Blizzards of yore. My, how truly far we've come.

If there is a dairy queen and a burger king, one would posit that they might all just live happily ever after beneath the golden arches, no? But this is 2021, and fairy tale happy endings are decidedly basic. Instead, we have the McFlurry, McDonald's Canadian brainchild, pitted against the Blizzard, Dairy Queen's cash cow. And as everyone knows, when a brainchild and a cash cow enter a ring, only one can emerge victorious.

Business Insider gives it to Blizzard, in a test comparing the Oreo versions of the Dairy Queen, McDonald's, and Burger King frozen treats. The article claims that both the Blizzard and the McFlurry have great taste, the right amount of creaminess, and appropriately sized cookie chunks, but the Blizzard finishes first by being mixed more thoroughly. Plus, the add-in options at a Dairy Queen are far more extensive than your typical McDonald's; and while the Blizzard costs a couple bucks more, you are pretty much guaranteed a milkshake, whereas McDonald's McFlurry mixers are often down, the article reports. (Burger King's Oreo sundae didn't even come close.)

A similar test from Yahoo Life rates Blizzard just above McFlurry as well, citing better ice cream, bigger Oreo chunks, and a more even distribution in the Dairy Queen dessert. But really, at the end of the day, if you're snowed in due to some sort of icy, cold weather event and either McDonald's or Dairy Queen will deliver you a frozen treat, wouldn't you be happy with either one?