Make a Shake in South Beach Makes Candy Drinkable

Margaux Herrera

​There's a reason that Willy Wonka still appeals to us: Candy is exciting, no matter your age. So when someone decides to take crazy candies and make them into milkshakes, you know they'll be good.

Make a Shake, which opened just a few weeks ago on the corner of Lincoln Road and Alton Road in South Beach, allows you to combine any of the shop's 230 candies (including every single flavor of Jelly Belly jellybeans), chocolates, cereals, and cakes and make a milkshake ($4.95) out of them.

Apparently the expression "like a kid in a candy shop" applies to actual candy shops too. I could not stop smiling while deciding from which candy to make a shake, and looked like an even bigger fool while I drank it.

One of the owners, Mike Reynolds, kept telling me they want customers to realize they're "drinking a candy," but not until I tried my second shake (the first was Toblerone) did I understand.

My jellybean shake tasted like jellybeans. "Well, duh," you might say, but it was kind of a blow-you-away moment. All I wanted was to sit in a corner and drink it while giggling occasionally.

Margaux Herrera

Co-owner Ben Way blends a shake at Make a Shake.

​Reynolds and his business partner Ben Way, who are both British, adapted the concept from a chain that Reynolds launched in England. The shakes start with a base of skim milk and fat-free frozen yogurt (that tastes a lot like ice cream), and the candy is mixed in smoothly.

Their secret to blending the add-ins: the "Will it blend an iPhone?" blenders, industrial mixers that are 3.3 horsepower. To make these monster machines even cooler, Reynolds programmed them with different settings so that each add-in will blend correctly.

Margaux Herrera

Candy at Make a Shake

​Make a Shake's décor is different from anything else in South Beach. One wall is lined with rows and rows of bright treats and cow stickers, and the opposite is completely lined with wood, giving it a barn-like feel. They have also set up three iPads along a wall so that you can sit and surf the web while enjoying your creation.

Right now, you can "pick and mix" candy (79 cents per ounce), and in a week or so, you'll be able to order just the ice cream in cups (or "tubs," as the Brits refer to them).

So really, indulge your inner kid and go make a shake.

Make a Shake
1650 Alton Rd., Miami Beach
facebook.com/makeashake

Follow Short Order on Facebook and Twitter @Short_Order.