REVIEW: These Drinks Are SO GOOD We'll Be Dreaming About Them for a Week

We’re just going to say it — if you’re trying to avoid booking a spontaneous trip to Disneyland for the holiday season, this isn’t the post for you right now!

Merry Mashups

The 2023 Disney California Adventure Festival of Holidays has officially begun, and there is so much to eat and do. From now through January 7th, 2024, you can try all the tasty eats and drinks your heart desires, watch unique entertainment, and more! Wondering just what you can eat at the Merry Mashups booth? We just tried everything there and are giving you our FULL thoughts.

Over at the Merry Mashups booth, you’ll find many different options. Two of these items are new this year, and we can’t wait to try them out! There’s a returning Southern Mac ‘n Cheese, and a new Maple Hazlenut Hot Buttered Rum and Santa’s Milk & Cookies Hot Cocoa drink. YUM!

Now that we’ve seen the menu, it’s time to EAT!

Eats

Here, you can grab the Southern Mac & Cheese with andouille sausage and spiced panko crunch for $9. This item is totally new to us, but it looked…well…it looked a little greasy. Okay, we won’t lie — it looked a lot greasy.

Southern Mac and Cheese

However, looks can be deceiving, and despite all that grease, we found it pretty tasty. It has a tiny bit of kick, thanks to the andouille sausage and spiced panko, but it’s not so spicy that you really notice it. But still — it’s got a lot of grease in it.

Pretty greasy

We get that Southern food does tend to be a bit oily, but we think it’s a little overboard here. It’s not the WORST mac and cheese we’ve had, but it’s also not the best.

Drinks

There are two drinks on the menu here, the first being the new Santa’s Milk & Cookies Hot Cocoa, which is inspired by the Disney+ series The Santa Clauses. It contains whole milk, cookies and cream powder, and white chocolate with whipped cream for $7. This is a GREAT hot cocoa with a cookies and cream taste. It’s also very smooth (and not powdery, which sometimes happens with hot cocoa). We’d drink this again.

Santa’s Milk & Cookies Hot Cocoa

The other option is the Maple Hazelnut Hot Buttered Rum made with dark rum, butter, hazelnut paste, maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove with a salted caramel whipped cream for $17. Okay, first – WHEW! The rum packs a serious punch. It is STRONG. But it had such a lovely sweet and salty butterscotch-like flavor. The salted caramel topping added just a nice touch of sweet and savory.

Maple Hazelnut Hot Buttered Rum

Once again, this one is totally new to us, so we were looking forward to trying it out, and it did not disappoint!

OVERALL

Merry Mashups certainly delivered on the drinks, and we would order both the hot cocoa and buttered rum again without thinking about it. We’re still not completely sold on the food item here, and we would’ve liked it to have a little less grease, but some people might love that about it.

Merry Mashups Spread

That’s it for this booth, but there’s a LOT more where that came from!

Click here to see FULL menus and food photos of EVERY. SINGLE. BOOTH. at the Festival of Holidays at Disneyland Resort!

Trying to plan the PERFECT trip to the Festival? We’ll be keeping you updated on all of the latest. Click our links below for the information you need to know:

And stay tuned for more Disney news!