 | |
| Course | Beverage |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | United States |
| Region or state | Coachella Valley |
| Created by | Russ Nicholl |
| Serving temperature | Cold |
| Main ingredients | Dates, ice cream |
| Variations | Fresh, sugar crystal |
A date shake is a milkshake made with dates. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] The drink originated in, and is particularly associated with, the Coachella Valley in California.
A date shake is typically made with a base of milk or ice cream and blended; a shake can contain about 1/2 cup of dates. [7]
Another method, invented in 1936 by Shield's Date Garden, involves the use of date crystals, dried "nubbins" of dates that are sweetened with date sugar. The crystals are then mixed with water to create a paste before being blended with other ingredients. [4] An alternative method involves baking the dates, which are then blended to a paste-like consistency. [1]
Date shakes are high in fiber, iron, potassium, and niacin. [7] They have a high sugar and calorific content. [1]
At the end of the 19th century into the beginning of the 20th, plant explorers from the USDA were sent to search globally for new crops that could be farmed in North America. These explorers returned with date palms from North Africa and the Middle East. The explorer, Walter Swingle brought back six medjool date offshoots from a Moroccan oasis; these six offshoot specimens "account for all the megool dates grown in the US." [1]
In 1928, Russ Nicholl (sometimes spelled Nichol) and his family built a roadside shack near Thermal, California. [8] Another news source states that Nichol built his shack in 1919. [9] A few years later, this shack was expanded and named Valerie Jean after Nicholl's daughter. With electricity and refrigeration, the Nicholls were able to offer variations of ingredients blended with their supply of dates. [10] Nichol was reportedly inspired by stories of nomads in the Middle East who he heard "lived entirely on dates and goat’s milk". [1]
In 1924 Floyd and Bess Shields opened the Shields Date Garden in Indio to compete with the quickly growing date industry in Coachella Valley. [11] [2]
The Coachella Valley has numerous date shake shops, many of them are located on Highway 111. [7] The small desert town of Westmoreland, where medjool dates are grown, and Indio, where Shields is located, are known for their date shakes. [12] [5] The drink has been called the "unofficial drink of the Coachella Valley" [4] or the "unofficial drink of Palm Springs." [5]
They are a popular drink at the Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival [13] and during the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. [1]
Cathedral City, colloquially known as "Cat City", is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. Situated between Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage, the city has the second largest population, after Indio, of the nine cities in the Coachella Valley. Its population was 51,493 at the 2020 census, a slight increase from 51,200 at the 2010 census.
Coachella is a city in Riverside County, California. It is the namesake and easternmost city of the Coachella Valley, in Southern California's Colorado Desert.
Indio is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, in the Coachella Valley of Southern California's Colorado Desert region. It lies 23 miles (37 km) east of Palm Springs, 75 miles (121 km) east of Riverside, 127 miles (204 km) east of Los Angeles, 148 miles (238 km) northeast of San Diego, and 250 miles (400 km) west of Phoenix.
La Quinta is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States. Located between Indian Wells and Indio, it is one of the nine cities of the Coachella Valley. The population was 37,467 at the 2010 census, up from 23,694 at the 2000 census. The Robb Report credits La Quinta as the leading golf destination in the US. Among those destinations is the La Quinta Resort and Club, a resort dating to 1926, where director Frank Capra wrote the screenplay for Lost Horizon. The Tom Fazio-designed golf course at The Quarry at La Quinta is ranked among the top 100 golf courses in the United States. In January 2008, the Arnold Palmer Classic Course at the city's SilverRock Golf Resort became one of the four host golf courses for the annual Bob Hope Chrysler Classic PGA golf tournament.
A milkshake is a sweet beverage made by blending milk, ice cream, and flavorings or sweeteners such as butterscotch, caramel sauce, chocolate syrup, fruit syrup, or whole fruit, nuts, or seeds into a thick, sweet, cold mixture. It may also be made using a base made from non-dairy products, including plant milks such as almond milk, coconut milk, or soy milk.
The Sonoran Desert is a desert in North America and ecoregion that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the southwestern United States. It is the hottest desert in both Mexico and the United States. It has an area of 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 sq mi).
The Low Desert is a common name for any desert in California that is under 2,000 feet in altitude. These areas include, but are not exclusive to, the Colorado Desert and Yuha Desert, in the Southern California portion of the Sonoran Desert. These areas are distinguished in biogeography from the adjacent northern High Desert or Mojave Desert by latitude, elevation, animal life, climate, and native plant communities.
The Coachella Valley is an arid rift valley in the Colorado Desert of Southern California in Riverside County. The valley may also be referred to as Greater Palm Springs and the Palm Springs Area due to the prominence of the city of Palm Springs and disagreement over the name Coachella. The valley extends approximately 45 mi (72 km) southeast from the San Gorgonio Pass to the northern shore of the Salton Sea and the neighboring Imperial Valley, and is approximately 15 mi (24 km) wide along most of its length. It is bounded on the northeast by the San Bernardino and Little San Bernardino Mountains, and on the southwest by the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains.
Shields Date Garden is a historic date palm orchard and tourist attraction in Indio, California, United States.
The Desert Sands Unified School District (DSUSD) is a public school district with main offices located in La Quinta, California. The district was founded in 1964, after the California Department of Education consolidated all Indio public schools. As of 2017, DSUSD serves 28,958 students in Indio, La Quinta, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, Bermuda Dunes, and parts of Rancho Mirage and Coachella.
Shake Shack is an American fast casual restaurant chain based in New York City. It started out as a hot dog cart inside Madison Square Park in 2001, and its popularity steadily grew. In 2004, it received a permit to open a permanent kiosk within the park, expanding its menu from New York–style hot dogs to one with hamburgers, hot dogs, fries and its namesake milkshakes.
The Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival takes place in Indio, California. Since 1947 the annual festival has been held to celebrate the Date Palm harvest in the Coachella Valley. The event is held in February on the Riverside County Fairgrounds.
Thermal is an unincorporated community within the Coachella Valley in Riverside County, California, United States, located approximately 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Palm Springs and about 9.5 miles (15.3 km) north of the Salton Sea. The community's elevation is 138 feet (42 m) below mean sea level. It is served by area codes 760 and 442 and is in ZIP Code 92274. The population was 2,865 at the 2010 census. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined Thermal a census-designated place (CDP), which does not precisely correspond to the historical community.
The Desert Sun is a local daily newspaper serving Palm Springs and the surrounding Coachella Valley in Southern California.
The Stagecoach Festival is an outdoor country music festival held annually at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, United States. Various artists attend, whether they be mainstream or relatively unknown, ranging from folk, mainstream country, bluegrass, roots rock, americana and alternative country. It is the highest-grossing festival centered on country music in the world. The festival is presented by Goldenvoice, The Messina Group, and Moore Entertainment and acts as a sister event to Goldenvoice's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, taking place the following weekend at the same site. The 2020 and 2021 Stagecoach Festivals were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On June 1, 2021, Stagecoach announced its 2022 return. The country music festival took place between April 29 and May 1, 2022.
The Indio Hills are a low mountain range in the Colorado Desert. located in Riverside County, California's Coachella Valley. The hills were named for their proximity to the city of Indio, and are sometimes referred to as the Indio Mud Hills or Indio Sand Hills.
SunLine Transit Agency, a transit operator in Riverside County, California, is a transit agency providing bus service in the Palm Springs Area, with service extending into San Bernardino Transit Center during peak hours. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 2,518,000, or about 8,700 per weekday as of the first quarter of 2023.
The Empire Polo Club is a 78-acre polo club in Indio, California in the Coachella Valley of Riverside County, approximately 22 miles southeast of Palm Springs. Founded in 1987, it has hosted international polo tournaments. It leases out its polo grounds for Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and Stagecoach Festival annually for the last three weekends in April.
B Bar H Ranch, California is an unincorporated area with cultural and historical features and is a residential community in Riverside County, California. B Bar H Ranch is located between Palm Springs and Desert Hot Springs in the Seven Palms Valley. California Home Town Locator states the B Bar H Ranch Latitude is 33.9102927 and Longitude is -116.4819566. The GNIS entry date is January 19, 1981. B Bar H Ranch sits at an elevation of 784 feet (239 m). B Bar H Ranch is approximately eight miles north of Palm Springs, California and approximately six miles south of Desert Hot Springs, California. B Bar H Ranch's approximate 240 acres are bordered by 18th Avenue to the north, Mountain View Road to the east, 20th Avenue to the south, and Bubbling Wells Road to the west. B Bar H Ranch consisted of approximately 899 residents as of the 2010 US Census.
Indio is a former and future train station in Indio, California.