Before milkshake machines—in and out of order—people in the 1890s had their milkshakes shook with a hand crank device. Fun fact: you could buy milkshakes in drug stores as these machines used to mix liquid medicines before they started making sodas and then milkshakes, all as alternatives to alcohol.
“No country drug shop or cross-roads store is now considered complete without a machine for making milk-shakes,” San Francisco’s Evening Bulletin reported in California. “The milk-shake is the craze, and the city people on their vacations come upon it everywhere. The shake is merely a glass of milk and an inch of fruit sirup [sic]. The glass that contains it is put in place in a machine that jolts and bounces it terrifically for a minute or two, mixing in into a light substance like whipped cream.”
True West MAgazine
Milkshake related: 3 levels of milkshakes and the $5 milkshake from Pulp Fiction