Bacon milkshake? Yes, from Jack in the Box.
If conventional wisdom says that bacon makes everything better, then Jack in the Box may finally have discovered the exception: the聽bacon milkshake.
"It's for real. Bacon Shake," reads an ad from the San Diego-based聽fast food burger chain.聽"Ask for it today."
The public reaction so far has been largely negative, but taste isn鈥檛 really the point. The bacon shake is the latest in a long line of fast food fare so outrageous that they serve mainly to draw attention to the fast food chain as a whole, rather than as a serious menu item. Take KFC鈥檚 鈥淒ouble Down鈥� sandwich from 2010 (the one with fried chicken breasts as the 鈥渂read鈥�), or the perennial resurgence of the McDonald鈥檚 McRib.
The latest porky dairy treat is a part of Jack in the Box鈥檚 new ad campaign, which asks the question: If you like bacon so much, why don鈥檛 you marry it?
The bacon milkshake may actually be the least disturbing part of the campaign: A trip to the restaurant鈥檚 marrybacon.com website will treat you to a video of a guy literally marrying a bacon cheeseburger. While there, you can also 鈥渕ake your own bacon baby鈥� 鈥� upload a headshot of yourself, and your facial features will be superimposed onto a strip of bacon which will then be added to a baby鈥檚 body. (If it sounds icky, that鈥檚 because it is).
But back to everything you need to know about the bacon milkshake. It鈥檚 as indulgent as you would expect a bacon milkshake to be: the regular, 16-ounce size has 773 calories, 40 grams of fat, and 75 grams of sugar. The 24-ounce size has 54 grams of fat and 1,081 calories (to put that in perspective, the recommended daily caloric intake for an average-size woman is 2,000 calories). If you鈥檙e keeping kosher or vegetarian, you鈥檙e in luck: The shake is made with bacon-flavored syrup, rather than the genuine article.
It鈥檚 available for a time 鈥渁s limited as limited can be,鈥� at participating locations. Jack in the Box has 2,100 stores in 19 states, mostly in the western half of the United States. The shake doesn鈥檛 appear on the menu; you have to ask for it.
How does it taste? Plenty of brave bacon-shake tasters have weighed in around the Web:
鈥淲ow. That was horrific, 鈥� wrote Brock Keeling, a blogger for SFist. 鈥淏ad it was. Aggressively so, A heavy, lingering bland with a touch of smoke that doesn't go away. Jack in the Box's Bacon Shake hits the senses like smokey maple syrup.鈥�
Noting a lack of true bacon flavor, Edwin Goei at the OC Weekly calls the shake 鈥渓ess a marriage to bacon than a harmless flirtation鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 like I鈥檓 90 years old and I have to drink my food,鈥� said a man taste-testing the shake on film for CNBC鈥檚 Jane Wells in a California mall.
Food items like the bacon milkshake are fun in theory, and they get their purveyors into the news for a few days. But in all likelihood, very few people are actually buying a Double Down or the McRib for lunch on a regular basis.
Nor is bacon in dessert anything new. Last year, Denny鈥檚 introduced a 鈥淢aple Bacon Sundae鈥� as part of its 鈥淏aconalia鈥� festival; unlike the Jack in the Box shake, it came topped with real bacon. Chocolate candy bars with bacon bits have become an increasingly common sight in many grocery stores, including Whole Foods. A quick Google search unearths scores of recipes for homemade bacon milkshakes, most of them involving maple syrup, ice cream and, well, bacon.
Still, if curiosity gets the best of you, visit and type your Zip Code into the store locator to find a Jack in the Box near you. 聽
