White people are going to love it!
September 12, 2015 7:56 AM   Subscribe

If you've visited Starbucks, the grocery store, or Pinterest this week, you know the surest sign of Autumn isn't back-to-school, it's Pumpkin Spice. But is there something more at work here than a collective love of nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves?
posted by jacquilynne (84 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Ugh, every year with these people.

Just drink a friggin' chai already!
posted by Sys Rq at 8:03 AM on September 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


I admit, I laughed out loud at ".....Linus?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:05 AM on September 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


I don't even like the smell of that fake pumpkin pie stuff, much less the taste.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:26 AM on September 12, 2015


I love pumpkin lattes. I couldn't give a fiddler's fuck how much of a joke that makes me.
posted by Windigo at 8:26 AM on September 12, 2015 [29 favorites]


You'll have to pry my homemade pumpkin apricot muffins out of my cold, dead hands.
posted by orange swan at 8:31 AM on September 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


I started reading the Reductress because the first time I visited the site I saw an ad for pumpkin spice maxi pads.
posted by phunniemee at 8:35 AM on September 12, 2015 [17 favorites]


I think I framed this post badly. Or maybe a referendum on pumpkin spice is inevitable whenever it arises.

I make no judgements on you whether you do or do not like pumpkin spice. I just think the Pumpkin Spice movie trailer is fun and well done. And perhaps would have been better posted as a SLYT.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:36 AM on September 12, 2015


* ears perk up *

Orange swan, I'll trade you the recipe for those muffins for a pumpkin-apple-streusel muffin recipe I use a lot. (Mods: we can do this in memail, unless there starts to be a huge demand and then I can start a MeTa just for this exchange or something.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:36 AM on September 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


I think this is a fake. If it was a real horror film, the main character would have a black friend who dies at the end of the first act. It's like a law!
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:39 AM on September 12, 2015


Pumpkin Spice is just a way to juice the price of cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg futures.
posted by SansPoint at 8:41 AM on September 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


I think it's gross, but I don't care if other people pay for it. I'm not going to. More delicious Kenyan roast for me.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:43 AM on September 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


Also, kinda disappointed nobody in the spoof, or in the thread, made a "pumpkin spice must flow" joke.
posted by SansPoint at 8:43 AM on September 12, 2015 [16 favorites]


microwaving takes all the romance out, don't you think?
posted by Wolfdog at 8:51 AM on September 12, 2015 [5 favorites]


It makes me sad when we mock people because they like a thing.
posted by eustacescrubb at 9:00 AM on September 12, 2015 [40 favorites]


Also, kinda disappointed nobody in the spoof, or in the thread, made a "pumpkin spice must flow" joke.

Well, I didn't want to be that guy, but I had my first pumpkin spice latte of the season yesterday and my eyes turned blue within blue and I learned that my name was a killing word. So I got that going.
posted by logicpunk at 9:04 AM on September 12, 2015 [46 favorites]


I'm going to try one this year just specifically because haterz
posted by thelonius at 9:10 AM on September 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


Did you actually think Big Flavor was going to wait until Thanksgiving or Black Friday to hook people on the distinct hint of gingerbread?
posted by Smart Dalek at 9:12 AM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Just say no to anything Pumpkin, including pumpkins. Can't stand the myth, the mix, the gourd.
posted by seawallrunner at 9:13 AM on September 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


I used to love pumpkin beer. Loved it so much I downed a 6-pack in an hour and vomited 1970s Orange all over the bathroom walls. Then it wasn't that fun anymore.

Pumpkin Spice is just a way to juice the price of cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg futures.

This is 100% true. At the brokerage I used to work at, a senior partner once left his briefcase near my desk before going to lunch. Unable to resist temptation, I rifled through it. Found numerous memos between top brass and several major coffeeshop chains, talking about "surplus condiments" and "need to bring demand up to speed with supply" and "possible seasonal gimmick". I laughed at the time. How naïve I was. If I had only known the true extent of evil in the heart of commodities trading, I could have done something to stop the madness. And now it's too late. That will weigh on me until my dying day.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 9:14 AM on September 12, 2015 [24 favorites]


If we can't mock people for liking a thing, what can we mock people for? It's sad when people get mocked for things they have no control over. Lightheartedly mocking people for trivial lifestyle decisions is a non-hurtful act of bonding.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:17 AM on September 12, 2015 [13 favorites]


I can't get on board with this. I love anything that reminds me that Halloween is just around the corner.
posted by cazoo at 9:20 AM on September 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


i am having a pumkin scone right now with my chai and it is the best thing
posted by poffin boffin at 9:23 AM on September 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


also i am having 8 egg whites and 12 bacons because today is leg day
posted by poffin boffin at 9:24 AM on September 12, 2015 [7 favorites]


Dried spices aren't a seasonal thing, and most pumpkin spice things don't have pumpkin in them.

The reasons for the season are apples and roasted chiles and mocking my son's pumpkin spice beer.
posted by ernielundquist at 9:31 AM on September 12, 2015 [5 favorites]


I'm going to try one this year just specifically because haterz

Yeah, I did that last year, borne very much out of a "fuck this, I'm going to drink one and love it and revel in my basicness" but wow it was so bad. So now I feel like I've got the experiential authority to judge people for liking it.

Pumpkin is so delicious. This Pumpkin Spice™ monstrosity is...not pumpkin. Disappointing.
posted by phunniemee at 9:34 AM on September 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


You'll have to pry my homemade pumpkin apricot muffins out of my cold, dead hands.

Pumpkin muffins are indeed brilliant, as are many other things made from actual pumpkin.

This discussion confuses it with "pumpkin spice", which doesn't have pumpkin in it any more than motor oil has motors in it. Pumpkin spice is named for the spices in pumpkin pie.
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:34 AM on September 12, 2015 [17 favorites]


Orange swan, I'll trade you the recipe for those muffins for a pumpkin-apple-streusel muffin recipe I use a lot.

You may consider that an unfair trade when I tell you how I make pumpkin muffins. I use a banana bread recipe, replace the banana with pumpkin (canned pumpkin and mashed bananas have a very similar consistency), and add some chopped dried apricots. Or raisins if I don't happen to have any apricots on hand.
posted by orange swan at 9:45 AM on September 12, 2015 [8 favorites]


I love pumpkin lattes. I couldn't give a fiddler's fuck how much of a joke that makes me.

Favorited for attitude, and for adding 'fiddler's fuck' to my lexicon.

Pumpkin lattes are sorta meh to me, though. Never liked the flavor of pumpkin (real or imitation). Love autumn, though - it's my favorite season.
posted by Mooski at 9:50 AM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


I bought pumpkin pasta sauce last week to eat on meatballs. It was actually pretty good. The pumpkin spice lattes always taste like cheap cinnamon to me, though, i.e. soap. Is there a "ugh, cheap cinnamon" gene like there is for cilantro?
posted by bitter-girl.com at 9:52 AM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Wake me when eggnog season starts. Then we can talk.
posted by triggerfinger at 9:54 AM on September 12, 2015 [9 favorites]


I love the fall. I love the favors that come with the fall, and damnit if I'm stupid enough to be in Starbucks, you damn well better believe I'm going to mask the flavor of burnt beans with pumpkin spice!
posted by evilDoug at 10:00 AM on September 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


Starbucks has Pumpkin Spice Frappuccinos now.

Best/worst of both worlds.
posted by spinifex23 at 10:15 AM on September 12, 2015


So a local distillery makes a pumpkin cordial with actual pumpkin, it's like pumpkin pie that will get you drunk. This morning saw the invention of the drunken spice latte.
posted by Gygesringtone at 10:20 AM on September 12, 2015 [8 favorites]


The pumpkin spice Frappuccinos have been around for a few years. The two or three week stretch when you can drink a pumpkin spice Frappuccino without shivering is one of the best times of the year.
posted by Metroid Baby at 10:25 AM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm down with the gingerbread and pumpkin stuff, but does anyone else feel like it started extra early this year? Maybe I'm biased by the fact that it's still, like, 95 degrees out.
posted by salvia at 10:34 AM on September 12, 2015


it started september 1st a day on which it was iirc 150 degrees outside and as humid as satan's own nutsack
posted by poffin boffin at 10:37 AM on September 12, 2015 [7 favorites]


Wake me when eggnog season starts. Then we can talk.

Yaaasss, McDonald's eggnog shakes, my precious...

Starbucks has Pumpkin Spice Frappuccinos now.

Thanks! BRB!
posted by fuse theorem at 10:38 AM on September 12, 2015


I was in Target yesterday and saw some M&Ms in a new colored package. I looked closer....yes, it was pumpkin spice. I also saw Glow in the Dark Oreos. I keep thinking I can't be surprised by new junk food ticks, but I am always proven wrong.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 10:40 AM on September 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


Wake me when eggnog season starts. Then we can talk.

I made my own with this recipe, it was so good that I set a reminder in my calendar to make another batch this November.
posted by peeedro at 10:53 AM on September 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


This year I saw Pumpkin beer on August 3rd. AUGUST. THIRD.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:01 AM on September 12, 2015


I was in Target yesterday and saw some M&Ms in a new colored package. I looked closer....yes, it was pumpkin spice. I also saw Glow in the Dark Oreos. I keep thinking I can't be surprised by new junk food ticks, but I am always proven wrong.

Target has some kind of exclusive deal with candy companies, they get all kinds of oddball one-off specialty candies you don't see anywhere else. I just tried salted caramel candy corn at my parent's house from Target, actually pretty good. And they're also the only place that carried white chocolate Cadbury mini-eggs during Easter, which are my favorite evereverever (apart from the chocolate mini-eggs...and the dark chocolate mini-eggs...I think I have a mini-egg problem).
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:04 AM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


If we can't mock people for liking a thing, what can we mock people for? It's sad when people get mocked for things they have no control over. Lightheartedly mocking people for trivial lifestyle decisions is a non-hurtful act of bonding.

You can; it'll just make me sad.

And I don't agree that it's "non-hurtful." Underneath it, even in the FPP here, is the racist "white people are uncool graceless dorks" meme, which is racist not against white people but against black people because it relies for its existence on the unspoken corollary: that black people are, by nature, cool, hip, better at physical activities, etc. That trope is racist because it relegates black people to certain acceptable behaviors mostly centered around entertaining white people, etc.

Also, judging people by their tastes is an old neocon rhetorical move invented by the likes of David Brooks (liberals drink lattes! Us salt of the earth Americans drink drip coffee!) and there is no one to one relationship between a person's tastes (in anything) and their politics or morality or worth as a person.
posted by eustacescrubb at 11:05 AM on September 12, 2015 [41 favorites]


T.D. Strange, very rarely I regret going low carb. This is one of those days.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:16 AM on September 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


The horror movie trailer would be better if it could decide whether it was about evil pumpkins or evil "pumpkin" spices.

But then most actual horror movies have similar problems.
posted by straight at 11:18 AM on September 12, 2015


I love the fall. I love the favors that come with the fall, and damnit if I'm stupid enough to be in Starbucks, you damn well better believe I'm going to mask the flavor of burnt beans with pumpkin spice!

Is this you?
posted by bonje at 11:45 AM on September 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm pathetically white (Scots and German genes) and I loathe pumpkin spice, and don't you dare put pumpkin in my beer either, so there's a li'l ol' data point for the lighthearted stereotyping.
posted by aught at 11:56 AM on September 12, 2015


Where my Peppermint people at? That is the only time I drink coffee with milk in it or go to Starbucks. Pumpkin spice season is just the prelude to Christmas and minty times.
posted by dame at 12:02 PM on September 12, 2015 [10 favorites]


This discussion confuses it with "pumpkin spice", which doesn't have pumpkin in it any more than motor oil has motors in it. Pumpkin spice is named for the spices in pumpkin pie.

I've never had a pumpkin spice latte, but I always assumed one of the flavors was pumpkin. Intrigued by this statement, I went off in search of an answer. Sure enough, Starbucks describes the drink as "highlighted by flavor notes of pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove," and the "pumpkin spice sauce" (talk about an unappetizing name) that apparently flavors their lattes lists pumpkin puree among its ingredients.

I've perhaps hastily concluded that pumpkin spice-flavored products do indeed have pumpkin as part of the flavor profile, as opposed to pumpkin pie spice itself, which is just a spice blend.
posted by mama casserole at 12:06 PM on September 12, 2015


Anything pumpkin can do, butternut squash can do better. And that includes jack'o'lanterns.

As to nutmegs, we of Connecticut take pride in our long association with the spice. Long story short, Connecticut traders used to buy them in Granada and sell them in the sticks. The profit margin was so good that crafty Connecticutters began to salt the stock with carved hardwood fakes to boost profit.

You can read about it here.
posted by BWA at 12:31 PM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yes "Pumpkin" Spice was pretty much the Pete Best of the Spice Girls, having been kicked out before the group made the first big charts breakthroughs. But after licking her wounds, she took it as a sign that the bubblegum music career was not for her and followed her dream of opening a cafe / scented candle shop and was highly successful in her own way.
posted by mr.ersatz at 12:53 PM on September 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


You know what, though? Not only do I not care for pumpkin spice, I don't like eggnog or Cadbury creme eggs or those weird green milkshakes, either.

As such, if you people don't stop enjoying those seasonal offerings, I'm going to just have to blow up the sun so you won't have seasons at all, and you will only have yourselves to blame.
posted by ernielundquist at 1:01 PM on September 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


I kind of agree with you, Eustacescrubb, and mocking people for what you consider horrible taste doesn't do anything but put them on the defensive.

I like good tea, and so I cringe when I see faux-victorian tea emporiums that serve blueberry white tea chillers or whatnot. On the other hand, I've had origami-clad waitstaff roll their eyes at me when I haven't known how to whisk my Pu-erh that's sweated in cedar boxes on mountaintops for 35 years or whatever. Happily, where I live there's an English tea shop downtown that serves Yorkshire Gold with scones and clotted cream.

I think the thing to do is appreciate context: I'm not going to ask for blueberry ice tea at the Zen temple, and I won't expect pu-erh at the chips shop. If you're in Starbucks and order a pumpkin spice latte I applaud your reading of the zeitgeist.
posted by acrasis at 1:11 PM on September 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


Isn't this a sexism thing, not a racism thing? Because it's mainly women drinking this drink. I'm a foreigner, but I seem to recall that's how it looked last time. Mocking women for drinking uncool sweet drinks from chains.
posted by alasdair at 1:12 PM on September 12, 2015 [6 favorites]


Does anybody else have a father who sez 'punkin' or is that my unique hell
posted by angrycat at 1:23 PM on September 12, 2015


Isn't this a sexism thing, not a racism thing?

I honestly never thought about this, maybe because I haven't noticed any assigned gender stereotypes for coffee drinks. Maybe? But then I don't see the racism in this, either, so maybe I have a blindspot to this.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 1:45 PM on September 12, 2015


I'm pretty sure that the argument about that was that women were disproportionately being criticized for being 'basic,' and that pumpkin spice was just one example or facet of that.

But anything that reaches the cultural and media saturation that pumpkin spice has had in recent years is going to get pushback. It's a huuuge marketing bandwagon that a lot of companies are getting in on. I have never seen discrimination or even serious judgment against individuals who enjoy pumpkin spice flavors, though.

It's good to turn a critical eye to social phenomena like that, but you need to stay open to the possibility that some things are pretty much benign.
posted by ernielundquist at 2:10 PM on September 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


"you need to stay open to the possibility that some things are pretty much benign"

Mods, please add this to "Everybody needs a hug" on the MetaTalk comment box disclaimer!
posted by DrAmerica at 2:27 PM on September 12, 2015 [10 favorites]


"Glow in the dark Oreos" brings to mind this HerrDoktor "Sausalitos in the night" anecdote.

Can't comment on the topic itself, as I've never had a cup of coffee. I do like the smell of pumpkin pie spices, but that inevitable burnt undercarriage is a ruiner.
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:30 PM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


This discussion confuses it with "pumpkin spice", which doesn't have pumpkin in it any more than motor oil has motors in it. Pumpkin spice is named for the spices in pumpkin pie.

Yeah. I love pumpkin as a flavor, and for a while seasonal pumpkin beers seemed to run along a measured, reasonable spectrum from pumpkin-gourd-flavor to pumpkin-spice-flavor. But the past year or two, since the pumpkin spice latte went from being a thing to being A Thing, it really feels as though most breweries have decided to use a heavy hand with the spice. It's incredibly difficult to find a non-spice pumpkin beer these days, and the ones that used to be pleasingly spiced are overwhelmingly artificial and cloying (Southern Tier Pumking, I'm looking at you).
posted by everybody had matching towels at 2:34 PM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Does anyone like the taste of pumpkin as squash as opposed to pumpkin pie spice? I do but feel in the distinct minority. I like kabocha, but I want someone else to prepare it, as I cut my finger almost to the bone when my knife slipped while slicing one (uncooked they are as hard as rocks).
posted by bad grammar at 2:52 PM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


I just dislike pumpkin spice season because the smells wafting up from the mini-Timmy's I'm in line at, etc, remind me of pumpkin pie and I hate pumpkin pie. Hate. Hate hate hate hate hate hate. You can have my share so long as you don't eat it near me. Hate.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:11 PM on September 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


I used to brew apple wine, and would add like a pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg and clove to the second set of 10L. Would do amazing things, especially served very cold. Warm it tasted kind of flat and muddied. My response to these combinations of flavors depends a lot on the temperature.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 4:57 PM on September 12, 2015


I use a banana bread recipe, replace the banana with pumpkin (canned pumpkin and mashed bananas have a very similar consistency), and add some chopped dried apricots. Or raisins if I don't happen to have any apricots on hand.

Huh. I think mine is basically that (replace banana with pumpkin), but then add some chopped apple instead of apricot and add a streusel topping.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:04 PM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


The only glow in the dark oreos I could find online were not cookies.
posted by seawallrunner at 5:47 PM on September 12, 2015


Wake me when eggnog season starts. Then we can talk.

I was just looking forward to this today. In December, I don't buy milk; I just buy eggnog. And I have a glass of it every morning for breakfast with a few slices of the special Christmas fruit bread I make using my mother's recipe. Mmmmm.
posted by orange swan at 5:49 PM on September 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


Does anyone like the taste of pumpkin as squash as opposed to pumpkin pie spice?

I love savory pumpkin! Butter, sage, om nom nom. I've even made pumpkin risotto served inside the pumpkin shell with a garnish of pumpkin seeds. (Note: you have to use the small pumpkins labeled as "pie pumpkins", not the big ones you get for jack o'lanterns.)

When it comes to pie, sweet potato > pumpkin. (And really pecan is greater than both of them)
posted by Daily Alice at 6:02 PM on September 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


There are pecan pie flavored M&Ms as well this year.
posted by carmicha at 7:15 PM on September 12, 2015


Peppermint flavored coffee type beverages are basically what you get when you drink your morning cup after you've already brushed your teeth. I.e. disgusting
posted by Existential Dread at 7:30 PM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Pumpkin Season is the best pumpkin spice parody and always will be. One day the masses will accept it.
posted by Anonymous at 8:06 PM on September 12, 2015


Does anyone like the taste of pumpkin as squash as opposed to pumpkin pie spice?

Can't taste the difference between it and butternut, actually; but I do tend to use the pumpkin flesh more so as soup than baked good (I don't bake as much as I'd like as it is often just me, and I have a hard time eating through an entire batch of muffins or a whole cake fast enough).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:13 PM on September 12, 2015


Is everyone really just agreeing that it's totally fine for it to be time for pumpkin stuff already? Because this is what happens next. I have no idea how good or bad those harbingers of misery are, resent them way too much to find out.
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:34 PM on September 12, 2015


Pumpkin Pie is the only thing that makes Autumn tolerable

The worst thing is when somebody brings sweet potato pie and from a distance you think it's pumpkin but it's not

It's gross instead
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:34 PM on September 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


sweet potato pie is the best you shut your mouth
posted by Anonymous at 9:20 PM on September 12, 2015


Is everyone really just agreeing that it's totally fine for it to be time for pumpkin stuff already?

No, it is not time to nestle down and warm ourselves over a cup of hot pumpkin cocoa, because it is still 102 degrees out. Before the retailers change their shelf displays, they really need to step outside for a moment.
posted by salvia at 12:02 AM on September 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Meh. I don't understand the brouhaha about pumpkin. I've always been much more partial to the gingerbread latte.
posted by like_neon at 1:29 AM on September 13, 2015


Underneath it, even in the FPP here, is the racist "white people are uncool graceless dorks" meme, which is racist not against white people but against black people because it relies for its existence on the unspoken corollary: that black people are, by nature, cool, hip, better at physical activities, etc. That trope is racist because it relegates black people to certain acceptable behaviors mostly centered around entertaining white people, etc.

It's hard to escape race when talking about the concept of “cool” in America. The term itself originally referred to remaining stoically unruffled in the face of the myriad insults thrown at one by a structurally racist system, about not letting them get to you. The cultural phenomenon of cool, meanwhile, functioned as a form of underground cultural capital for people denied the ability to build up mainstream economic or social capital. So saying that African-American people do cool better is a bit like saying that Italians make the best pizza; in this day it may not be strictly true, but there is a truth behind it.
posted by acb at 2:53 AM on September 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


I really like my mom's pumpkin bread/cake recipe, and a good pumpkin pie.

PSL is pretty disappointing to me compared to chai. I mean, I have to have one every year just to make sure -- much like I have to have one egg nog every year to remind myself I still don't like them much.

Mostly I'm just completely over the pumpkin spice frenzy and the backlash against it.
posted by Foosnark at 5:37 AM on September 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Am sitting here at the Castleton Panera, slowly working on my second double espresso (free refills!) Just over my right shoulder hangs a banner announcing the return of their pumpkin-spice travesty drink. Ugh.

Isn't "pumpkin spice" a bit of a redundancy? Without spices, pumpkin on its own is fairly innocuous (unless baked or roasted, of course)
posted by Thorzdad at 6:30 AM on September 13, 2015


Right - this thread has pretty much sent me into a baking orgy for the day today.

although nothing with pumpkin, I've already got plums and grapes and cheese and lemons and peaches I need to do something with first and oh maybe some of the grated zucchini in the freezer from last month could go into a zucchini bread hey neat
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:11 AM on September 13, 2015


My favorite PSL moment was when, upon first meeting a friend of a friend just before Halloween last year, we somehow got into a conversation about Instagram hashtags, and he mentioned that he had been browsing #sluttygaycostumes and saw #PSL pop up as a related hashtag (and that was how he learned what the abbreviation stood for). We speculated about why those might be related for a few minutes (seasonal?) and then I was like "Actually it's probably just one guy using both those hashtags so heavily that they've become associated now, and I'm pretty sure I know him."
posted by sunset in snow country at 11:35 AM on September 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Pumpkin spice is okay, but not any better than chai as others have said. The backlash is silly though. A friend of mine had her husband get her one since she was ashamed.

Personally what I look forward to by mid to late fall is when Cranberry Splash Sierra Mist comes back.
posted by weathergal at 11:38 AM on September 13, 2015


Thank you all for clearing up some vague lingering confusion I've had about why Projective Special Linear groups seem to be enjoying an unexplicable vogue.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:26 PM on September 13, 2015


my favourite thing about pumpkin spice season is that it means that soon Cranberry Ginger Ale will be in pop cans in stores.

Also, eggnog latte season is right around the corner.

pumpkin spice things in general are SO SWEET that I cannot drink them, even at "half sweet" At starbucks. But, I am crazy for cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, so I feel like I would like them if I could handle it. I mean, what's not to like about baking spices?

I feel the key to a good pumpkin pie is actually blackstrap molasses.. maybe I should try making my own pumpkin spice syrup with it.
posted by euphoria066 at 2:38 PM on September 13, 2015


If hate and passion both had actual mass that was symmetric by intensity then the people who love pumpkin spice stuff would never even tip the see-saw against the people who get cranked up about pumpkin spice. I am sure there's someone who loves pumpkin spice as much as some people hate its existence but I have yet to meet them.
posted by phearlez at 11:46 AM on September 14, 2015


« Older Some of these comics sold hundreds of thousands   |   the American Tiki fantasy Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments