Dairy Queen's New Holiday Menu Items Are Festive, But Light On Flavor

Sam Zwick/Mashed

It's never too cold to enjoy soft serve, which is why Dairy Queen is rolling out a new menu that's already looking past fall and into the winter. The Holiday Treat Collection is available now for a limited time and features two new and one returning favorite.

On the returning side is the Frosted Sugar Cookie Blizzard. This treat features soft sugar cookie pieces, icing, and festive sprinkles blended into that iconic DQ soft serve. Joining this classic is the new Peppermint Bark Blizzard, which happens to be the November Blizzard of the month. Candy-cane lovers, listen up: This is a Blizzard filled with white and milk chocolate chunks sprinkled with peppermint candy cane pieces mixed into vanilla soft serve.

For those craving something a little smoother, there's also the new Holiday Nog Shake, made with Holiday Nog syrup blended with soft serve, milk, and topped with whipped topping and a sprinkle of nutmeg. As an eggnog fan, this one definitely made me perk up, which is why Mashed sent me to Dairy Queen to try out the new holiday items. Read on to find out if these are treats you want to see in your stocking this year.

Sam Zwick/Mashed

The Peppermint Bark Blizzard is available in four sizes: mini, small, medium, and large. At my Dairy Queen, a mini costs $3.99 and fills you with 370 calories. A small is priced at $4.99, a medium at $5.79, and a large is $6.59, though pricing may vary by location. As the price and size go up, so do those calories. A small contains 610 calories, a medium 850, and a large 1,120 calories. For anyone looking to get a little extra chocolate in their life, you can sub in chocolate soft serve for no additional charge, though there are a few extra calories per size to account for.

Meanwhile, a small Holiday Nog Shake costs $4.19 and contains 590 calories. A medium ups the calorie count to 770 and the price to $4.99, while the large comes in at 1,010 calories and $5.79. Once again, a substitute for chocolate soft serve is an option for the shake.

Sam Zwick/Mashed

Eggnog tends to be one of the more divisive holiday treats. Personally, I love it in part for eggnog's versatility. It took a little convincing, but I finally brought my wife around by describing the taste as akin to a melted milkshake. With that visual, Dairy Queen's use of the beverage makes perfect sense. If one milkshake is good, two combined should be amazing.

Unfortunately, the Holiday Nog Shake falls flat. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it as a vanilla milkshake, I just wish it had more eggnog flavor. The highlight is the dusting of nutmeg on top because it provides a punch of warm spice that I expect from my nog. Even the appearance is bland. If someone handed a vanilla Holiday Nog Shake to me without explanation, I'd say it was a standard vanilla shake with something unidentifiable going on inside.

In the interest of providing the best guide to ordering, I also tried the chocolate version of the Holiday Nog Shake. If the flavor wasn't strong enough to punch through in the standard vanilla, it has no chance in the chocolate. Ultimately, this is a good effort, but there are too many great items on the DQ menu and too many good eggnogs to waste an order on this shake.

Sam Zwick/Mashed

This is a frozen treat with a little more personality, but not much. Like the Holiday Nog Shake, the Peppermint Bark Blizzard evokes a familiar holiday flavor, but doesn't bring enough to the table. The chunks of peppermint bark are tasty, but they're small. The good news is that means you're guaranteed a bit of bark in every bite, but sometimes those pieces are too small to even sink your teeth into.

Given that the peppermint bark is the only source of peppermint flavor in the Blizzard, this one comes up short. A hint of peppermint syrup in the soft serve would help punch it up, but as it stands, the bark is good, but simply overmatched, especially in chocolate soft serve. The combination of chocolate and mint is certainly better than chocolate and eggnog, but the peppermint flavor still gets pushed out by the soft serve. I would recommend sticking with the vanilla option, but if your heart is set on chocolate, this one at least works, though it falls short of expectations.

Sam Zwick/Mashed

Dairy Queen simply needed to do more with these two new holiday menu items. By no means is either bad. They're simply not exciting. If I'm ordering something with eggnog, I want it to be nog-forward, whereas the shake tastes like the eggnog is an afterthought. The same goes for the Peppermint Bark Blizzard. It tastes like it was designed to appeal to folks who usually avoid mint ice cream because the flavor is too much. Rather than muting the key ingredient, Dairy Queen should have leaned in and gone with peppermint in the soft serve and in the inclusion. Instead, we got two frozen treats that are fine, but not nearly as exciting as past seasonal efforts like the Pumpkin Pie Blizzard, which is an absolute classic.

I visited my local Dairy Queen as soon as it opened to try out the new items because 11 a.m. is a completely reasonable time for this much soft serve. I ordered everything, tossed it in a cooler, and brought it home to photograph and taste. My evaluation was based on taste, texture, and accuracy relative to the item descriptions. I also compared the chocolate and vanilla versions of each item to determine which was better. Dairy Queen was not aware of this review when preparing the food.