Throughout the holiday season, one can expect to leave many celebrations so full they have to unbutton their pants. For Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and even New Year’s, food is an integral part of the festivities. Numerous businesses capitalize on this and publish a menu filled with limited time products just for the holiday season. Starbucks, the most popular coffee chain in the world, is famous for embracing holiday products. Below is a comprehensive ranking of these festive treats.
Gingerbread Oat Milk Chai: 9/10
For fans of the fall-favorite pumpkin chai with cold foam, the new Starbucks Gingerbread Oat Milk Chai is a must-try. This drink is the perfect transition from fall flavors, like pumpkin, to wintery holiday flavors, like gingerbread. While the chai spice is already strong, the gingerbread gives a warm spicy flair to the drink. Much of the flavor’s intensity is lost in the iced version, so the drink is much better hot (which is perfect for cold weather!). The drink comes with oat milk, which many don’t appreciate, but it can be easily substituted for any other milk of choice. While all is well and good with this drink, the pumpkin chai will still have my heart.
Peppermint Mocha: 6/10
If you like the regular Starbucks mocha, there’s a good chance you’ll like this one too. Starbucks’ Peppermint Mocha tastes just like it says it does: a mocha with peppermint. This drink encapsulates the flavors of comfortingly cold weather. That being said, it is basic. While it’s good iced or hot, the drink has an overwhelming artificial peppermint taste in the frappuccino version, making it hard to drink. However, the chocolate flavor throughout is perfectly rich. For the best drinking experience, I recommend getting half the amount of peppermint flavoring if you order the beverage blended.
Sugar Cookie Almond Milk Latte: 3/10
This drink had to be my least favorite of them all. While I appreciate that Starbucks is experimenting more with non-dairy milks being the default in their drinks, this one is not up to par. This drink was strangely watery, which was likely because of the non-dairy milk as well as the pumps of sugar cookie flavoring.The drink didn’t taste like a sugar cookie to me, and instead left a strange aftertaste on my tongue. Overall, I don’t think this drink was necessarily bad; I just think it could be improved. If the drink were a basic almond milk latte on the bottom and had a sugar cookie-esque flavored cold foam, the taste would be more uniform and enjoyable.
Gingerbread Latte: 5/10
This latte is either a hit or a miss. While the title has gingerbread in the name, it’s hard to detect the flavor of the spice or the cookie. However, if you like your coffee less sweet, this drink would be your favorite.
Chestnut Praline Latte: 7/10
This drink has a great balance between sweetness, coffee flavor and holiday vibes. Like the gingerbread latte, the coffee flavor in this drink is easy to discern, but in a more enjoyable way. The praline flavor in this drink gives it the sweetness it needs while not being too artificial or overpowering, and the chestnut flavor adds a more plain and balancing flavor to bridge the gap between the bitter coffee and the sweet praline. I thought this drink was really clever as a holiday option; it features the flavor of candied chestnuts, which are typically connected to the holidays. The only drawback of this drink is the watery consistency, which could be remedied with a creamer or cold foam.
White Chocolate Mocha: 6/10
If you’re looking for a drink that’s not quite as chocolaty as a mocha, but still has that chocolate-level of sweetness, this drink is for you. I really enjoyed this drink, and the flavor of the white chocolate didn’t overpower the flavor of the coffee like the regular mocha does. However, for being on the holiday menu it’s a little disappointing. While other drinks have flavors like gingerbread, sugar cookie, praline and peppermint, this mocha is just bland. The same can be said about the frappuccino version of this drink. On the other hand, this could be more appealing to those who prefer a more traditional coffee taste. It’s a safe option, but it’s missing some of that holiday magic.
Caramel Brulee Latte: 4/10
To me, this drink was disappointing. Expecting it to be similar to the chestnut praline latte, I found the flavor to be lacking. The best part of this drink in my opinion were the caramel bits at the top. While the title is “caramel brulee,” I could hardly find any of those flavors. It tasted like a latte you could make at home with espresso and vanilla creamer from the grocery store. So if you’re looking for a holiday flavored drink that is uniquely crafted by Starbucks, I would not recommend this one. It could be a good drink if the flavors were physically added, such as drizzling caramel on the inside of the cup and on top of the whipped cream rather than a syrup flavored caramel.
Hot Chocolate: 6/10
This hot chocolate was just how you would picture hot chocolate: warm, comforting and chocolaty. It was a drink perfect for the winter season, and stayed true to its traditional winter roots. Starbucks’ hot chocolate, however, was a little bitter for my taste. While this hot chocolate was good, I definitely think you can get it better elsewhere.
Overall, I’d say the Starbucks holiday menu didn’t disappoint. While there were a few drinks that fell short of my expectations, most of these drinks are something I would order again. I think it’s a fun way to take the changing of the seasons and make it profitable for the company and enjoyable to the consumer. While many of these drinks are tried-and-true favorites of the holiday menu, I would love to see more creative and zany flavors, like cranberry, on future menus.
