A sign in a Starbucks store in Montecito, California, heralds the return of Pumpkin Spice Latte to the menu and the impending arrival of fall. Starbucks’ iconic drink turns 20 this year, and its influence is seen across a range of products. (Ashley Ludwig/Patch),
ACROSS AMERICA — There pumpkin spice goes again, stealing summer.
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Like it or loathe it, the fall flavor- and scent-o-rama is underway. Starbucks deemed it so last week, announcing with frothy enthusiasm that its trend-setting Pumpkin Spice Latte is back on the menu in a big, 20th-anniversary kind of way.
“Over the last 20 years,” the Seattle-based coffee company said, “the iconic beverage has had an influence on the coffee industry, pop culture and everything in between.”
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That’s not wrong.
It doesn’t get much more pumpkin-ey than at the Pumpkin Spice Suite at five Great Wolf Lodge resort properties this fall. Guests will pick up on notes of nutmeg, allspice and cinnamon in the potpourri and partake of bottomless pumpkin spice lattes. Don’t wear your Barbiecore pink on this getaway. It’ll upset the balance of the fall themed wall art, fall florals and wreaths, and pumpkin throw pillows the resort promises will “transport you into a lovely autumn escape.”
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Sound romantic? Spice it up with a marriage proposal. Nothing says “I want to be with you forever” like a pumpkin spice latte-inspired engagement ring.
It’s “the perfect ring when it’s love at first sip,” jewelry company Angelica Diamonds said on its website of the rose gold ring with orange sapphires topped with white diamonds to mimic latte foam, and emeralds studding the sides of the band. At £10,000 — or around $12,717 — it better be true love.
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Pumpkin Spice Goes To The Dogs
Even the family dog can make a toast to the savory season with Busch’s Pumpkin Spice Dog Brew. Don’t worry. You won’t have a drunk pup. Made with fresh vegetables, spices, water and absolutely no alcohol, it’s not even near beer for dogs. It’ll wash down the Pup-kin Spice Doggie Doughnuts from Krispy Kreme.
There’s no shortage of pumpkin spice-flavored goodies on grocery store shelves. (Autumn Johnson/Patch)
Humans can get pumpkin spice Krispy Kreme treats, too, But they’re so ordinary in this what-will-they-think-of-next? pumpkin spice world.
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Want some pumpkin spice in your breakfast cereal? No problem. (Autumn Johnson/Patch)
Even pumpkin spice-flavored Spam, Hormel’s misunderstood canned meat product, no longer raises an eyebrow in the cornucopia of seasonally spiced cookies, breakfast cereals, hummus, snacks, gelatin, mac-and-cheese, cup noodles, booze, and, of course, latte drinks from Starbucks’ competitors.
It’s only a matter of time before someone figures out a way to pile all these pumpkin spice treats on a stick, throw them in a vat of hot grease and sell them to state fair crowds who will eat any meal they can carry around like a lollipop. Oh, wait, state fairs are all over pumpkin spice.
Boar’s Head put pumpkin spice in its dessert hummus. (Autumn Johnson/Patch)
When It Is, But It Isn’t
Pumpkin spice even goes into things that aren’t the thing they claim to be. Chosen Foods got fancy with its pumpkin spice-flavored caviar. There are no actual fish eggs in this topping, a relief since it’s meant for ice cream and pastries, which aren’t complemented by the salty, slightly fishy flavor profile of caviar.
Before our national obsession, pumpkin spices occupied a tiny space on the grocery store shelf. It was mainly used for baking pies, breads and other sweets, or in candles to make kitchens smell as if the oven has been running at 325 degrees for hours.
The scent is available in a range of personal care products and services.
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A Fredericksburg, Virginia-based Sageworks sent Patch an email pitch about its pumpkin spice massages, an essential oils aromatherapy treatment for people who don’t mind walking around smelling like a piece of pie.
Dudes, apparently, don’t either. DUMPkin Spice Wipes will “keep your butt cozy with a mix of clove, nutmeg and other fall scents,” according to product creator DUDEwipes, which started out as a site for bathroom jokes but morphed into a legitimate business.
Pumpkin pudding toothpaste? Yep, it’s a thing. So is pumpkin spice eye shadow — and lest you think it’s a just palette of fall-inspired colors, know this: of the ubiquitous brands of this fall makeup kit, some eyeshadows are pumpkin spice-scented.
You’re probably not alone if your question is, “Why?”
You may be asking the same thing about pumpkin spice fish lures. They appear to be a color, not a flavor, though.
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You get the point. Short of cloistering yourself in your house until we move on to the season of peppermint, you could not escape pumpkin spice products if you tried.
Pumpkin spice has fast-forwarded us into fall and there’s no turning back, even if sweater weather is still several weeks away.
For what it’s worth — and that’s quite a lot to people who bemoan pumpkin spice and other seasonal creeps — it felt like 115 stinking degrees or hotter in much of the country on Aug. 23, the day Starbucks opened the last locks on the pumpkin spice floodgates.
We Feel Warm And Fuzzy, Though
The popularity of the seasonal offering has led to some great one-liners. Comedian John Oliver once called pumpkin spice lattes “the coffee that tastes like a candle.” There’s a Facebook group called “I Hate Pumpkin Spice.” Slogans like “ain’t no pumpkin spice in my mug” have been screen-printed on T-shirts.
The haters are a very vocal minority, though. As it turns out, most of us love pumpkin spice, even if we’re not going to rush out and buy scented wipes for our rear ends or caviar that’s not really caviar or drop a grand on a ring that pays homage to Starbucks’ lattes.
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Last year, of 20,000 pumpkin spice posts on Instagram and Twitter, now known as X, only 8 percent were negative, according to researchers at Montclair State University.
Also, pumpkin spice may well be a great equalizer between the genders, according to the Kearney Consumer Institute, whose survey a couple of years ago found that 66 percent of respondents have warm, fuzzy feelings about pumpkin spice, irrespective of gender and socioeconomic status.
Jason Fischer, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University who studies human perception through sight, sound and smell, told The Associated Press that odor and flavor have a more direct route than other senses to the area of the brain that processes memories.
That’s due to evolution; humans needed to remember which foods were safe to eat. But it means smells and memories are closely linked.
Still, he said, people’s sense of smell can be malleable. In experiments, subjects have taken a sniff of something and described it in many different ways. But when they’re shown a label for that smell — say, “pumpkin spice” — their perceptions shift and their descriptions become more similar.
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“Odors and sights go with certain places, like the aroma of pine and the crunching of needles beneath your feet,” he says. “They’re associated with a certain kind of experience. And then marketing taps into that, and it’s a cue for a product.”
Take Our Survey
For fun, fill out our form below. Do you love pumpkin spice or suffer through the season? What’s a bridge too far when it comes to pumpkin spice? And don’t worry — we won’t collect your email address.
Editor’s note: Due to a typographical error, the price of the pumpkin spice latte-inspired ring was incorrectly stated in U.S. dollars. The cost, converted from pounds, is $12,717.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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