Before the leaves start to crisp and turn ochre, and the wind begins to carry the slightest chill with it, people around the country look forward to the first signs of fall: Rae Dunn houseware, beanies, and the beloved pumpkin spice latte. The PSL is loved by many, including my own mother, and about 30 million pumpkin spice flavored lattes are sold each year at Starbucks. I get it, pumpkins are the fall thing, and I would happily go to a pumpkin patch every single day of the year if I could. However, I want nothing to do with eating anything pumpkin-flavored, not pie, and especially not a latte. I’ll stick to carving my pumpkins and roasting the seeds only. I personally think there are much better fall-flavored lattes that are worthy of the same attention that the pumpkin spice latte gets each year, but I’ll get into that later.
First off, where and when did the pumpkin spice latte first start popping up? Well, “pumpkin spice” itself is just a mixture of a few simple spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, and cloves. It’s packaged and sold as pumpkin spice to make it easy for people who are just looking to make a pumpkin pie, and companies do this same thing with apple pie spice. The only difference between pumpkin spice and apple pie spice is the addition of cloves in pumpkin spice and that’s about it aside from packaging. Similar spice blends have been used throughout history, with recipes from the 1700s featuring the same spices to make pies. In 1934, McCormick started selling the first “pumpkin pie spice.”
Despite the long history of pumpkin spice, the Pumpkin Spice Latte itself wasn’t introduced until 2003 by one of our favorite chain corporations, you guessed it, Starbucks. Back then the Pumpkin Spice Latte was just the usual espresso and milk with sweet fall “pumpkin” spices and flavoring. In 2015, the recipe was reformulated to include real pumpkin puree to appease customers who wanted to see the ingredient list go public.
The Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte is available, and extremely popular, in over 50 countries. Many companies struggle with having a single menu item become popular worldwide because people in different countries can enjoy many different types of foods and flavors and may dislike flavors popular elsewhere. Certain flavors can be very popular and easy to find in certain countries and difficult to find in others. It’s also very common for companies to cater their menus to flavors and tastes more prevalent and popular in those countries, such as a Snowy Cheese Latte that’s available in China during the winter season. The success of the Pumpkin Spice Latte does make sense, even though I don’t personally agree with it, because these spices are used around the world which can evoke a sense of familiarity with people everywhere.
Since people across the world love their PSLs in the fall, the media does as well, with countless articles being written around them, and their exclusive release. The exclusivity of the Pumpkin Spice Latte may also have something to do with its popularity. It’s typically only available for about two months each year, starting at the end of August or early September and ending on October 31st. Starbucks is known for its limited releases, and honestly, it works well for them. If the drink were available year-round, then people wouldn’t be as inclined to buy it on a regular basis. The PSL is associated with the pumpkin patches, apple-picking, and overall sense of the fall season itself, hence their other fall drink, an Apple Crisp Macchiato, which isn’t amazing but is better than its pumpkin counterpart, in my opinion.
So, while I may hate a PSL, I still love coffee and fall and the comfort of a hot drink on the rare cool day here in Florida. If I’m limited to Starbucks’ offerings, I’d happily take a white mocha with one pump of regular mocha over a PSL any day. Hot or iced. It’s grown-up chocolate milk and perfect year-round. A brown sugar latte is also amazing if I’m not in a chocolatey mood, but my top fall drink isn’t available at Starbucks. It’s available at a coffee shop called Mountaineer in Brooksville, which is about 15 minutes away from where I grew up, and it’s a maple bourbon latte. The warmth and slight spice of the bourbon mixed with subtle sweet maple is what I really look forward to when I go home, almost more than seeing my mom and catching up over that divine cup of coffee.