Heroic sleuths on TikTok this month exposed that the beloved/ridiculed Starbucks pumpkin spice latte tastes differently (and worse) this year. They are right. It's different. And if you don't like it, that says more about fall recipes than it does about Starbucks.
From Episode 41: Pumpkin, Spice, and Monetizing Fall
Listen to episode 31 wherever podcasts are found.
Every year around Labor Day, coffee shops all over the US break out their orange and earth-toned colors and remove their hibiscus-flavors cold brews with apple, maple, and most famously, pumpkin (spice)-flavored options.
But this year, it's different -- there's actual pumpkin in it. And people hate it.
Vox has done some damn fine reporting to explain what's going on. Essentially, the PSL appears to have hit its ceiling in terms of popularity. This could be for a number of reasons.
Some believe that it's because we're just kind of over it. Others believe it's because women are being bullied for enjoying them and therefore not buying them anymore (seriously) and others are arguing that now we just like other fall-flavored stuff more.
I think it's sort of all of those. I think women bully each other to the point that now there is pressure to be more complex than a "basic" woman who can't stop drinking PSLs. But, I also think that people have realized they prefer maple and apple-based drinks.
From Eater: Is Maple Pecan the New Pumpkin Spice?
But the Pumpkin Spice Latte's insane rise to prominence buoyed other similar products including things like pumpkin-spiced cheerios, pumpkin pop tarts, and so on and so forth.
As most of us know by now, pumpkin-spiced and pumpkin-flavored are two different things. The former is all the good stuff in pumpkin pie and the latter is a zombie squash that can grow in the awful soil/weather combination found in the colonial northeast portion of North America.
Thanks, Kyle.
The PSL's popularity meant big major coffee chains and local shops alike. In fact, in 2015, the drink was worth, like, half a billion dollars. And those were the glory days -- about 2012 to about 2018.
Now, the trend appears to be going down, but fall feels like it's more popular than it's ever been.
Pumpkin Beer: Also a Thing
The weirdest part of all of this to me is that pumpkin beer's rise in popularity appears to be part of this PSL wave. But, I'm not sure that's the case. A brewery named Buffalo Bill Brewery in California (re-)introduced the pumpkin-based recipe in 1985, nearly 20 years before Starbucks dropped its game-changing dessert coffee.
Buffalo Bill's pumpkin-based beer recipes were based on the recipes of General George Washington, President of the United States -- ever heard of him? But, those recipes were actual pumpkin beer recipes, not pumpkin-spice recipes.
To brew beer prior to the intricacies of mass transportation, you had to brew with the ingredients you could get your hands on. And in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusettes, that was pumpkins. This beer was reportedly awful. Because pumpkin is not that good. Mental Floss has an EXCELLENT article about this. 10/10 recommend.
From Mental Floss:
"But no one wants it. It’s really like the beer of last resort.” In her book Pumpkin: The Curious History of and American Icon, Cindy Ott writes that the flavor was described as having a “slight twang” when compared to more reputable ales of the time."
But, (like the eye-rolling tool I am) I adore the idea of hyper-local beer brewed with the ingredients of the area. It's why I like stouts and darks ales from England and corn-based Mexican lagers and, my favorite, Oktoberfests. This is me reviewing maybe the best pumpkin beer I've ever had.
For me, pumpkin beer -- when brewed as an homage to the colonial badasses just trying to have a goddamn ale -- is a great way to welcome the pending winter. They couldn't use the harvest grain because you need it to eat and feed animals. So, they used a pumpkin.
My five pumpkin beer recommendations for all those different tastes out there:
Pumpking, Pumpkin Brown Ale: Souther Tier
Warlock, Pumpkin Stout: Southern Tier
Jack - O Pumpkin: Sam Adams
Punkin Ale, Pumpkin Brown: Dogfish Head
Yeti Pumpkin Spice Stout, Imperial Stout: Great Divide
It's About Nostalgia
Millennial nostalgia is the driving force for trends right now. The Super Bowl 56 halftime show with Dr. Dre, Em, Snoop, and Mary proved that.
Just last week, Rare Limited announced on Twitter that it would be re-releasing its mega-popular classic video game GoldenEye 007 for both Nintendo Switch and for Xbox's monthly streaming game service Xbox Game Pass.
The game that made all of us fall in love with (virtually) trying to kill our friends and the proverbial "12-year-old in Michigan."
Now, my gut feeling is that PSLs don't taste the way they used to because the Millenials who made them a global phenomenon are getting older.
And there is no combination of pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, or allspice that can make us 22 again.
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