mcDonald's Holiday Menu

Here’s a fact that a lot of people probably know about me: I didn’t eat McDonald’s food until my sophomore year of college.

It wasn’t just McDonald’s either. It was the majority of fast food. So when I eventually got that freedom to go to the sacred, golden arches, I leaped at the chance and got way too many chicken nuggets… And then proceeded to get sick the next day. But that was the day I knew I was missing a magical place where you could get many chicken nuggets and pretty mediocre smoothies for cheap… It ‘twas magical indeed.

I ended up going to McDonald’s several times last December because of their holiday items. They had this peppermint mocha that I fell in love with and drank almost every day because I have a slight obsession with anything that is flavored peppermint. This year was different though; instead of promoting the peppermint mocha coffee, they were promoting a cinnamon cookie latte and donut sticks. When I first saw them I didn’t think too much of them. I’m not too big a fan of cinnamon flavored things, and the donut sticks just looked like a mini churro with chocolate.

Oh look. I hate it.

Nevertheless, I promised a friend that I was going to eat them. So thanks Seth. You heathen. But in the words of the McDonald’s representative, “there’s a latte to be excited about.” Too bad I wasn’t that excited about it.

When I initially went to McDonald’s, it was around lunch time. They have these electronic menu boards that have everything that they currently serve, so it decreases that amount of interaction that I had with others. Always a positive in my eyes. But then I didn’t see the holiday items on the board. Which mean I had to talk to people. Also as a side note, they stopped serving the donut sticks at 10:30am at the location that I went to, so I had to get them the next day. More on that later.

I first got the Holiday Pie, Cinnamon Cookie Latte, and their Snickerdoodle McFlurry. I figured that I’d seen a lot about the Holiday Pie online and wanted to know how good this limited time item was, so I just went for it. When it came, it looked like the apple pie that they served mixed with Funfetti mix. The bottom of the pie stuck to the box, so it split open when I tried to take it out of the box. The inside just looked and smelled like a vanilla custard. And air. The box said “filled to the brim” or something like that. Either way it was a lie.

My Funfetti Nightmare.

The pie crust was the same as all the other pies. I think that was the only part of the pie I actually liked… The pie as a whole… Tasted like nothing. I felt like I was eating nothing. The custard was slightly sweet, but it wasn’t strong enough to be a prominent flavor in the pie. In fact, there were no strong flavors in the pie. When it comes to pie, you want the filling to be strong enough to be the primary flavor and have the crust accent the flavors from the filling. Even if the crust had a strong flavor, at least it would have something. This pie just did nothing. It tasted like nothing. It is nothing. I honestly cannot fathom why people like eating this.

I then moved onto the latte. Which also tasted like nothing. It’s amazing how they could take something that has such a prominent flavor, like cinnamon, and turn it into nothing. It just tasted like a latte that they forgot to put the flavoring in. Much, MUCH worse than the peppermint mocha (please come back to me, my sweet). It was like flavored sparkling water: it smells like the label on the can, but the flavor is nothing. Which is really worse than tasting like nothing because it gets your hopes up.

When all hope of flavor was beginning to fade, a light of hope shone through like the green light in The Great Gatsby. The Snickerdoodle McFlurry. Now, I will also go on the record (and know I will get some hate) by saying that I have never had a McFlurry before this one. Which means I won’t be able to judge the McFlurry based on others on the menu. But the concept seems simple enough. Have vanilla soft serve and another ingredient that would accent the ice cream. Simple enough.

One beautiful ice cream treat.

What did surprise me was the fact that this is the only limited holiday McFlurry flavor since 2012 (not counting international McFlurries that they’ve been slowly introducing) with their Holiday Mint McFlurry. But boy, this did not disappoint. The snickerdoodle chunks complimented the ice cream perfectly into a medley that sung sweet songs onto my tongue. It was the perfect combination that I didn’t know I needed. And the chunks were surprisingly intact, which made for a nice, crunchy surprise. It was a nice ending to that day’s holiday menu feast. But my journey didn’t end there.

Now, because the donut sticks were not being sold at the time, I decided that I was going to go to the McDonald’s near my house. At 5 in the morning. So that I was guaranteed a donut stick. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the smartest idea, but I had to be up that early anyways. So why not.

A cursed photo of me at 5am with Donut Sticks.

The first thing that struck me about the donut sticks were the aroma. It smelled like basic fried dough. Which is a good smell, don’t get me wrong. It made my mouth salivate and consider that this might be better than I initially thought. All I was really looking for was a mini churro. Since that is what they looked like. In fact, I feel like it would have been better if they sold it as mini churros instead of donut sticks. According to Wikipedia, a donut is a piece for fried dough in a ring-like fashion. So it already fails half of the definition by default.

I digress. When I got to my car, I decided to observe the treat. It was flaky and the skin felt like it was going to come off. Generally a good sign that they were going for a more light and airy feel for the mouth. It was also coated in a cinnamon/sugar mix, but it wasn’t a heavy coat. Like it was probably rolled around once in the combination. The chocolate sauce came in one of the sauce packets that they give out. Nothing too spectacular, but definitely more than I was expecting from McDonald’s. It was more of a very smooth ganache than frosting, which was my initial reaction.

Overall, the menu item should NOT have been called a “donut stick.” It tasted nothing like a donut. It didn’t even taste like a churro. Instead, it just tasted like fried dough. Which actually isn’t horrible. It’s one of my cardinal beliefs that anything that tastes bad could be improved by frying it. Something to note (that I didn’t catch onto originally) was that it does smell like their French fries. It would make sense; I mean, why would they buy or reserve a separate fryer for their fries and their donut sticks?

In the end, I’m not sure why this of all things is a holiday item. I could see it as a limited item for the summer (Hello? Fair season?), but nothing really screamed “holiday” to me in this dish. It was just screaming “I WISH I WAS A CHURRO.”

Final Rating: Cinnamon Cookie Latte – 3/10; Holiday Pie – 1/10; Snickerdoodle McFlurry – 8/10; Donut Sticks – 4/10