Pumpkin Drink Comparisons

"Pumpkin spice season", as the radio called it earlier, has been my favorite part of going back to school so far. I know everyone thinks of the Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks, but I have no sort of brand loyalty whatsoever, so I decided to make it a mission to try every pumpkin-flavored drink I could get my hands on this season before everyone switches over to peppermint. 

Instead of possibly racing against time to try everything before pumpkin spice season ends, I'm publishing this post with the original two drinks I started out with and I'll update it as I try more. 

EDIT 9/17: added Dunkin Donuts!
EDIT 9/22: added 7-Eleven and re-uploaded the Sheetz and BR pictures since it looked like the links to them broke
EDIT 11/23: added On the Run (at ExxonMobil stations) and Starbucks

First up: Sheetz!

I looked up a map of Sheetz locations, and it looks like it's only a Midatlantic chain. I didn't realize that before. 

My aunt bought me my drink, so I'm not sure what exactly it's called or how much it costs, but it was good! It kind of reminded me of the chai drinks my grandmother would buy for me from Caribou Coffee when she picked me up from  school. There was a lot of whipped cream and I had to mix it in with a coffee stirrer before I could drink any of it since it was pretty thick. It also didn't keep me up that night, which was awesome! 

Baskin-Robbins

Name: pumpkin cheesecake milkshake

size: medium

price: $5.99

My mom was the one to tell me about these since she got a promotional email about them. It was really rich. She compared it to drinking a liquefied pumpkin pie, and I really enjoyed it. They also have it as an ice cream flavor, along with other fall-themed stuff like candy corn or maple pralines. (The candy corn ice cream is really good.) 

My biggest complaint was that the guy that took my order only offered a size medium or large for it, and I really did not need this much to drink. I guess I could've asked if I could have a small, but it didn't really occur to me at the time. I think it's a pretty good value considering the size that it is and how strong the flavor was, but please don't let me ever order something this large ever again. 

Dunkin Donuts

name: pumpkin ice coffee

size: small

price: $2.19

Dunkin Donuts also offers a pumpkin latte, but the day I tried it was pretty hot so I opted for an ice coffee instead. (Hopefully I'll get to try the latte too before they take it off the menu.) I was honestly really surprised with how cheap it seemed! I don't know if I was just jaded after Baskin Robbins or what, but a plain ice coffee from Starbucks costs about the same as this did! 

From what I can tell, it's just a normal ice coffee with the pumpkin flavoring added in as a syrup. It was pretty strong at first and it tasted a lot like Caribou's chai tea did, but I drank the ice coffee over the course of an hour or so and the ice watered it down. Even watered down it wasn't that bad! It was sweet without making me jittery and kept me focused on what I was doing.

7-Eleven

name: pumpkin spice latte

size: small

price: $1.35

7-Eleven's has definitely been the best so far, cheapest price or not. It's a lot sweeter than the other ones I've had so far and doesn't taste too much like spices. (I almost called it spicy, but that's not quite the same thing ...) The coffee is ridiculously hot when it comes out of the machine, so I let it sit until I got back from shopping at Jo-Ann's. It's really good when it's not scalding. 

Anyway, the past two years I've made the mistake in thinking they don't have it and getting a normal coffee before realizing it's in a specific machine. It's from a machine that looks like the ones that give out creamers. I think they might also have pumpkin-flavored creamers, but I'm not entirely sure. The machine I got it out of had like five different buttons to it and I only cared about the PSL one ;; 

On the Run (ExxonMobil)

size: small

price: $1.35ish for each

I waited too long to add onto this post tbh;; I did the same thing at On the Run that I did at 7-Eleven, so I ended up with two coffees. One was a "fall blend" of sorts and one was a pumpkin spice latte. The PSL was just as good as 7-Eleven's, but it tasted more pumpkin-y to me. The more normal coffee was pretty standard, but I stuck like four Almond Joy-flavored creamers into it, so I'm not sure I can really vouch for it. 

Starbucks

name: pumpkin spice latte

size: small

price: $3 - $4 range

I don't really remember how much the Starbucks PSL costs since I've only bought them from campus and they never have the prices up. It's the most expensive of the coffee drinks, that's for sure. 

The Starbucks on my campus is a "business venture" of sorts in the sense that business students are the ones that run it and not necessarily Starbucks employees themselves. (This is the sense I get; this may not entirely be true.) This may be the reason why I was disappointed with the PSLs I got -- they both tasted like burnt coffee beans and very un-pumpkin-like. I actually ordered a PSL from them twice just to make sure the first one wasn't a fluke. 

The Starbucks PR twitter is pretty on point, though. I tweeted about how the first coffee wasn't par and they responded with an email address I should contact. I didn't do it because of the whole "business venture" thing (and also because I suck at emails), but it was nice to know they have a bot (or a person, I guess) keeping up with that kind of thing.

Stuff I've had in the past:

I've tried a couple different kinds of pumpkin flavored drinks in the past two years or so, but I haven't tried them this year, so I'm considering them slightly different than the ones above. 

Tim Hortons

I got to try Tim Hortons for the first time on a trip up to Erie last year, and they surprisingly had pumpkin-flavored stuff at the end of August! I don't remember too much about it, but I liked it. Unfortunately, there aren't any Tim Hortons in my area. (Maybe I should enlist the help of my friend at OWU. There's one nearby and I sent her on a mission to try something pumpkin-flavored from there.) 

Dunkin Donuts

Again, I don't remember too much, but I liked it better than a Starbucks PSL. There are a lot of Dunkin Donuts near me, including two right near my campus, so I'm definitely gonna try and get a more comprehensive take on it soon.

7-Eleven

I really only tried their pumpkin-flavored drink last year because of their promotional deal where they were offering 50 cent coffees. Honestly, I think 7-Eleven's was the best I've really had so far. I'm definitely hoping to go back and try it again, considering I don't even really know if they'll have it, but we never really stop at 7-Elevens. 

Starbucks

I wasn't all too impressed with Starbucks' PSL, mainly because Starbucks is expensive and I can barely justify getting a plain $2 ice coffee from there. I've heard they're changing the recipe and using actual pumpkin, though, so I'm going to try it out one more time. 

If you guys try any of the pumpkin-flavored stuff out there on the market, let me know! I know there are bound to be good ones out there from places I haven't considering going to yet. I definitely have my work cut out for me.