What is the Peppermint Hot Cocoa Blizzard?

The Dairy Queen Blizzard of the Month for December features candy cane pieces, choco chunks, and cocoa fudge, blended of course with DQ’s signature vanilla soft serve.

How is it?

This one definitely makes Santa’s nice list, and I was genuinely surprised how much I enjoyed it. On their own, the candy cane and hot cocoa flavors are pretty good, but together they teamed up to get my taste buds ready to celebrate the holidays all month long.

The cocoa fudge flavor certainly doesn’t scream hot cocoa (which by the way is always fun to scream for no reason at all), but it does provide a more complex chocolatey taste compared to the regular fudge and the hints of cocoa blend perfectly with the choco chunks and candy cane pieces.

Peppermint can be an overpowering flavor, but with this Blizzard there was enough to deliver that crunchy candy cane sweetness and distinctive taste while also letting the chocolate flavors join the party. I also liked the two different sensations with the hard candy crunch mixed with the softer crunch of the choco chunks.

Is there anything else you need to know?

This Blizzard is a cousin to the Candy Cane Chill and Candy Cane Oreo Blizzards that have appeared and disappeared like the Elf on the Shelf over the past few years, but I like this the best of the three. It’s unique enough to stand out among the Blizzard family in which some are too closely related.

The whipped topping speckled with candy cane pieces is a nice added touch here, especially if you are looking for the big burst of peppermint flavor that is missing from the rest of the treat.

Unlike some recent Blizzard flavors that were labeled as seasonal and seemed to be hanging around for a while, this one will be gone by New Year’s Day, so dash into your local DQ soon if you want to try one.

Conclusion:

With DQ introducing so many new Blizzards each year, along with several “let’s pretend it’s a new Blizzard even though we’ve had it in the past and just hope you forgot about it,” this one truly does rise above most others and is a great holiday treat.

Purchased Price: $3.99
Size: Small
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Small) 750 calories, 26 grams of fat, 16 grams of saturated fat, 1 grams of trans fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 230 milligrams of sodium, 120 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 100 grams of sugar, and 13 grams of protein.

What is the Harvest Berry Pie Blizzard?

It’s harvest time in the Dairy Queen kingdom, and the realm’s loyal subjects have rounded up a trifecta of berries – raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries — to mix with pie pieces and vanilla soft serve. It’s not the Blizzard of the Month for September though, as the retread Pumpkin Pie Blizzard gets that title, even though that version seems better suited for October or November.

How is it?

Berry good. I mean very good. Of course, my Blizzard looked nothing like the promotional photo with plump berries happily swimming with their pie piece friends in an ice cream vortex. I could only find one near-intact berry on top, but there were plenty of berry pieces throughout and the crunch of the pie pieces added a nice texture to the softness of the fruit.

It would be interesting to see how this Blizzard tastes with just one or two types of berries mixed in because the combination of all three creates an indistinct, somewhat tart berry flavor. What flavor is it? Is purple berry a flavor? It’s not a bad flavor. It’s just nothing special. Even when I got a decent size chunk of fruit in a bite, it was hard to tell which one it was with the other two berries also fighting for the attention of my taste buds.

Is there anything else you need to know?

You might think that with three types of fruit this Blizzard would be healthier than other DQ concoctions. Well, you’d be wrong. I guess it doesn’t matter what you mix in with soft serve and pie pieces because the result is going to be a high-calorie and high-carb sugar bomb. Even though this looks more like a smoothie than a Blizzard, nutritionally speaking it’s about the same as the ones loaded up with chocolate and candy. And most smoothies are not that healthy either. If you’ve ever looked at the nutritional info, they are also packed with sugar and carbs, which is precisely why they taste so good.

And as the photos attest, my local DQ apparently has no mini Blizzard cups, nor did they last time I visited. The coffee cup certainly did the job to insulate my treat and keep it from melting, but it’s still a bit off-putting to see a picture of steaming coffee as I wolf down a Blizzard.

Conclusion:

You can safely order this Blizzard without fear of having your mind blown, socks knocked off, world being rocked or other cliché of your choice, but the Harvest Berry Pie Blizzard is a nice change of pace if you are looking for something without chocolate and candy that will give you or your loved ones the false impression that you are trying to eat something healthy.

Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: Mini
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Mini) 380 calories, 16 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 190 milligrams of sodium, 52 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 39 grams of sugar, and 7 grams of protein.

What is the Snickers Peanut Butter Pie Blizzard?

It’s Dairy Queen’s co-Blizzard of the Month for August with its less fancy cousin Snickers Blizzard, which is a returning flavor. In addition to the titular candy, the Snickers Peanut Butter Pie Blizzard includes peanut butter and graham blended with vanilla soft serve.

How is it?

Straightforwardly solid. There’s not a whole lot of surprise in this Blizzard. If you like Snickers and peanut butter, then you are going to love this. As one who falls into that category, I figured this would be pretty good, and it was. The graham adds a nice layer of flavor, and all three elements blend together without any of them overpowering each other.

With the peanuts in the Snickers and peanut butter, I thought there might be a little peanut overload, but I didn’t find that to be the case. This Blizzard is the opposite of Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates — you pretty much know what you are going to get…a pretty tasty treat. Nothing more, nothing less.

Is there anything else you need to know?

You are supposed to learn something new every day. I don’t know who made up that rule, and I’ve lived my life choosing to mostly ignore that advice. My brain can only hold so much information. But during this review, I learned Dairy Queen has coffee, or at least I’m pretty sure they do since my Blizzard was served in a generic coffee cup, presumably because my local DQ ran out of mini Blizzard cups.

OK, the fact that DQ serves hot brown caffeinated water is not an earth-shaking revelation, and perhaps you already knew that. But not being a coffee drinker, I had no idea. I also learned that using an actual Snickers bar as a spoon is a great idea, despite the weird looks I got. So I learned two things today, freeing up my schedule to learn absolutely nothing tomorrow.

Conclusion:

With so many Blizzard combinations over the years, it’s hard for any mixture to rise above the rest without throwing in a truly unique ingredient or flavor. Of course, neither Snickers nor peanut butter qualifies as such. But even so, this is a good addition to the Blizzard lineup and a tasty, if unspectacular, way to wind down summer.

Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: Mini
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Mini) 450 calories, 21 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 230 milligrams of sodium, 57 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 45 grams of sugar, and 9 grams of protein.