“With hints of berry flavor and colorful, cloud-like pink Dairy Whipped Topping made with real cream, the Mt. McDonaldland Shake erupted from one of Grimace Island’s thick shake volcanoes.”

That’s how McDonald’s describes its new and limited time dessert on its website. But it’s hard to imagine thick shake volcanoes, just as it’s difficult to comprehend, despite McDonald’s constantly telling us, that Grimace is a taste bud. If it was a shake volcano, where’s the trail of devastation from the shake lava? Did Mayor McCheese call for evacuations when the eruptions happened? Were there earthquakes? And did those earthquakes cause Coke product tsunami waves? Did the Hamburglar take advantage of the chaos and loot the town? Is this a Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs situation here? There’s no description of any of those things, so it just sounds like Grimace Island has a working McDonald’s ice cream machine. Or there is a massive McDonaldland government cover-up.

The Mt. McDonaldland Shake is available as part of the new McDonaldland Meal, which also comes with a side of fries and your choice of 10-piece Chicken McNuggets or a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Or you can also get it à la carte. The meal also comes with a collectible souvenir tin that comes with stickers and postcards. I’m not going to review the nuggets or QPC. Instead, I’ll just focus on the new product of the meal.

The light blue shake and pink whipped topping made me think of cotton candy, My Little Pony, what Luke Skywalker might’ve had as a dessert while on Tatooine, the worst baby gender reveal idea, and the colors you’d see if you snort Pixy Stix candy. With its pink color, I thought the dairy whipped topping might have some fruitiness, but it’s all tint and no fruity hint.

As for what’s under the whipped topping, I assumed it would be blue raspberry-flavored due to its color. There are notes of that berry, but it tastes more blackberry-forward to me, and that is not a complaint because the shake was gosh darn tasty. However, after sucking up half of it, my taste buds started to become a tad overwhelmed with sweetness. So I can imagine folks saying that this shake is too saccharine. Not even mixing in the significantly less sugary dairy whipped topping helped dilute the sweetness.

With hints of berry flavor and colorful, cloud-like pink Dairy Whipped Topping made with real cream, the Mt. McDonaldland Shake is a delicious treat, and one that I would slurp up again if it ever came back, even if that means more natural disasters on Grimace Island.

Purchased Price: $15.39 (meal)
Size: Medium Shake
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (medium shake only) 650 calories, 18 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 75 milligrams of cholesterol, 250 milligrams of sodium, 105 grams of carbohydrates, 84 grams of sugar (including 68 grams of added sugar), and 14 grams of protein.