The Frosty, that iconic swirl of ice-cold sugarsweet refreshment, is the greatest fast food dessert of all-time, and belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of all-time fast food items, period. It is a perfect thing that could only be made more perfect with the addition of coffee.
We know it, Wendy’s knows it. It is a truth self-evident. For their part, Wendy’s has tried, multiple times, to deliver us unto this caffeinated soft serve Promised Land. But time and again they have failed, spectacularly, with such a flair for avoiding the obvious that it feels adversarial. And I for one have had it up to here and am hereby demanding of Wendy’s, of the ghost of Dave Thomas himself (may he forever rest in peace): give us a damn coffee Frosty already, you cowards.
The simmering tension between Wendy’s and Frosty-loving coffee drinkers everywhere goes all the way back to March of 2020. This was when the fast food chain released their newest menu item, the Frosty-ccino. The name alone evokes images of some perfect marriage of coffee and soft serve. But it proved to be a star-crossed love. Instead of whatever you imagined a Frosty-ccino to be, a thing that I would have assumed to have no wrong answers, it most certainly was not that and was some abominable concoction consisting of iced coffee with Frosty mix added to it. Nobody wanted it and it failed because it was bad.
Fast forward some three-and-a-half years later to today, and Wendy’s is still out here trying to pull the same bullshit. This week they’re hyping up a new item called the Frosty Cream Cold Brew, which let’s be honest, doesn’t quite have the same buzz about it that Frosty-ccino did. The Frosty Cream Cold Brew is simply a mix of cold brew and Frosty-flavored cream, with a choice of drizzle. Instead of getting Frosty, we get Frosty-flavored creamer. The sign bears no relation to any reality whatsoever; it is its own pure simulacrum.
At this point we have to conclude that Wendy’s doesn’t have the first idea about what makes their Frosties great. It ain’t the flavor, or at least all by itself. The magic of the Frosty is in the alchemy of it all: yes the flavor, but also the texture and the viscosity and cold. That you can eat it with a spoon itself makes it a treat. The flavor is nothing without the rest of the symphony.
It is beyond me why Wendy’s keeps fucking this up. Making a delicious Coffee Frosty would require no R&D or product creation. You wouldn’t even need to stock additional products. All they would have to do is take a Frosty, which they already have readily available at every one of their locations, and top it off with some cold brew, which they also already serve at every single location. It would be dealer’s choice as far as the Frosty part was concerned, with some favoring vanilla, others making the sensible choice of sticking with classic chocolate, and a select few opting for a whole experimental anaerobic thing and making their Coffee Frosty with strawberry.
Honestly this is so easy, in the course of reporting this article we became increasingly incensed on Slack, and so I set out to prove the point. Bing bang boom. I made my own damn self, with the addition of a dusting of coffee grounds I brought from home.
It was quick. It was perfect. It is not a Frosty-ccino, because that name was already wasted, and it’s not a Frosté (pronounced like latte, which is how you’ll probably start saying it now anyway). You might instead call it a Frosty-gato, or if you want to keep things simple, a good old fashioned Coffee Frosty.
Wendy’s can just have this idea, because it is good and pure and true, a surefire hit, and I want to see it brought to life. Some credit would be nice, however. Wendy’s x Sprudge Present: The Frosty-gato. That’s a smash hit.
Listen, Wendy’s, I get it. Even great writers need a good editor. We all can have a tendency to fall in love with our convoluted ideas and overcomplicate things. But sometimes the best ideas are the simplest ones. Help us help you. Let’s make this right, together. Let’s make The Frosty-gato, the Coffee Frosty, a union of cold brew and soft serve and maybe, just maybe, a dusting of coffee grounds to keep things interesting. You know you want it.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
