Shake Shack's beverage wiz leads innovation for all the 'straw stuff' on the menu

When Nick Wuest arrived at Shake Shack in 2019, lemonade was the only housemade drink on the menu, with one or two flavor extensions.

“It was a lemonade we were really well-known for, and my first day here, I was put in charge of infusing our strawberry lemonade with fresh mint to make our seasonal Strawberry Mint Lemonade,” said Wuest, senior manager of culinary innovation for the fast casual.

Since then, he and his team have expanded the flavor range far beyond that, introducing versions like cherry blossom, brought over from Shake Shack’s Japan locations, and sparkling lemonades in several flavors. “If someone had a really great drink on a trip overseas, nothing says we can't do it here,” Wuest said.

International inspirations

The cherry blossom lineup is inspired by Shacks in Japan.

The Dubai Chocolate Shake introduced last year at U.S. locations was first served at the fast casual’s units in the Middle East, based on the viral Dubai chocolate bar trend. There were a couple of challenges in recreating the shake here, Wuest admitted, but “once we climbed that massive mountain in figuring out how to line the cups with chocolate, it was easy to bring back this summer,” he said. “And our guests were asking for it ever since it ended its run on the menu.”

Wuest leads development of shakes, too, as Shake Shack includes all the “straw stuff” in the same category, he said. “Whenever I develop recipes, I love being limited to the cup; in this case, a 16-ounce clear plastic cup.”

Along with Shake Shack’s perennial seasonal favorite, Strawberry Lemonade, this summer’s limited-time Signature Sips include Sparkling Cucumber Basil, Tropical Mango Lemonade, and Mini Passionfruit Popping Boba Lemonades — a choice of any lemonade flavor with the addition of mini passion fruit popping boba.

“We’re super proud of our passion fruit popping boba,” said Wuest, who is a big fan of adding texture to drinks. “This is a great example of a texture that you can either chew or smush it with your tongue, and the passion fruit juice will burst into the lemonade. Softer textures tend to go so well in beverages.”

The Tropical Mango Shake includes passion fruit popping boba for added texture and balance.

The Tropical Mango Lemonade is a partner to Shake Shack’s Tropical Mango Shake; both use the same mango purée provided by a supplier.

“When we got that purée in, someone on our commercialization team thought it would make a really good shake, so we blended it with our frozen custard and it was absolutely delicious, but needed a little acid as it was a little too rich,” said Wuest. So he added the passion fruit boba to the shake, and it created the perfect balance.

The Sparkling Cucumber Basil was inspired by a drink being offered at a few of the Shacks, and Wuest wanted to scale it up to roll out to all 420 domestic locations. It’s based more on a technique than a flavor, he said.

“Some of our Shacks have soda machines in the back-of-house that dispense sparkling water, but many don’t,” he added, “so we had to come up with more than one technique to create this drink.”

Beverage development process

The second technique is based on bottled sparkling water, which Shake Shack sources as a beverage option. But the recipe had to work the same way with both techniques, and that meant figuring out the right ratio of purée. The purée supplier stepped in with an assist.

“We worked with our supplier partner to find the right concentration of cucumber purée, no matter the method. And it had to be formulated so that we used the whole bottle of sparkling water, since once the bottle is open, it goes flat,” said Wuest. “Plus, the dilution had to be the same for both techniques,” even when ice was added. The resulting Sparkling Cucumber Basil is made with a cucumber-basil purée topped with sparkling water, and it is consistent systemwide.

Shake Shack’s culinary team members all have fine-dining backgrounds, and Wuest has a special interest in mixology, so they were able to work out the nuances to create a successful beverage. Even so, they tried one solution that was kind of a disaster.

When I asked if they thought of using a Sodastream or similar piece of equipment, Wuest said, “We tried that here [in the test kitchen] and it made a colossal mess. You can’t carbonate anything with inclusions — even dissolved sugar — or the Sodastream goes haywire. It blows the top off and you go through a pile of towels cleaning it up, plus you need a new shirt.”

Wuest loves texture in drinks, and he quotes one of his favorite chefs to underscore its role: “Texture is America’s favorite flavor.”

As a former pastry chef, he has strong feelings about texture. “A shake straight up is nice and smooth, and tastes wonderful, but you put a little cake in there, something I can chew on, and it’s better,” he said.

Along with the Dubai Chocolate Shake and Tropical Mango Shake with Passionfruit Popping Boba, now on the menu is the Chocolate Toasted Marshmallow S’Mores Shake. It’s a combo of vanilla frozen custard handspun with toasted marshmallow dark chocolate ganache topped with whipped cream and graham cracker crunch.

On the cold drink side, Wuest has incorporated pieces of dried dragon fruit into pomegranate lemonade “to add that element that highlights everything you’re drinking and telegraphs what you’re about to have,” he said. Here again, his passion for mixology comes into play.

“I always think about that garnish on a cocktail and how I focus on it when I get a drink,” Wuest said. “So we look at that boba and the dried dragon fruit as those garnishes that give you that extra bit of excitement of what's coming.” These textures also provide an extra pop of flavor and a strong storytelling element, he added, which is why he typically garnishes shakes.

Menu pairings and innovation

The summer drink LTOs pair well with Shake Shack’s late spring Smoky BBQ food menu and the just-released California-inspired West Coast menu. The four members of the domestic culinary team work closely together, but “it’s not an explicitly stated goal to have things totally complement,” said Wuest. “Those moments tend to happen naturally by spending so much time with each other; it happens almost through osmosis.”

Gochujang flavors the K-Shack Spicy Caramel Shake for a Korean flavor profile.

A case in point is the K-Shack Spicy Caramel Shake that launched earlier this year along with Shake Shack’s Korean-style menu.

“A while ago, Executive Chef John Karangis threw together a sundae with some extra gochujang that we had on hand,” said Wuest. “He made a quick caramel, put it on a scoop of custard, and we handed that out to guests that came in when we first developed the Korean menu.”

So when the team decided to bring back Korean this past January, that sundae was in the chef’s “back pocket.” He combined the components of the sundae into a shake “just for fun” to hand out on launch day. It was a hit “and we thought it would be a fun to do a tie-in,” said Wuest.

When this beverage wiz started at Shake Shack, he was hired to develop an R&D program, not focus specifically on beverage R&D. But when he saw that the category was “wide open and for the taking,” he gravitated toward it. Now beverages are a hotbed of innovation everywhere.

“I love being limited to that 16-ounce clear cup,” said Wuest. “That limitation is really exciting to me because I can tell many different stories through the same vessel. Storytelling is our approach to beverages because we want people to drink them and recall a memory or a moment.”

Pat plans and executes menu, food and drink stories for Restaurant Business and hosts the weekly Menu Talk podcast. She provides in-depth coverage of chefs, trends and menu innovation.