You didn’t think I’d make it through Spooky Season without releasing another edition in the Definitive Guide to Snacks, did you? Of course not. After nearly driving myself mad by sampling a seemingly never-ending series of increasingly bad chips last time around, I decided to do the most logical thing that I could do to recover. That being to try out as many pumpkin spice flavored snacks as I possibly could, with the hopes that some wouldn’t be absolutely awful.
I hoped that would be the case. I really did…
Full disclosure, I actually like pumpkin spice, generally speaking. I’ll have a pumpkin spice latte or two around this time of year (though I greatly prefer the Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew if I’m going to Starbucks), and I do love pumpkin pies. That said, I truly don’t know how pumpkin spice has become such a ubiquitous flavor. Every snack company out there is desperately trying to grab onto the trend by releasing pumpkin spice versions of tons of products that make absolutely no sense from a flavor perspective. I’ve been burned enough times in recent years to where I’ve generally stopped trying any of these products, but sadly curiosity got the best of me this year.
I went into this initially thinking that this could be a fun and interesting experiment. I now know just how foolish I was. Pride comes before the fall, and this experiment was no exception. Before I get to the snacks themselves, I do have to admit that not all the below snacks are actually pumpkin spice flavored. There are a few exceptions, but I’m sure once you see what they are you’ll agree that they are still very much within the spirit of this experiment.
Will I do this again next year? Probably not. At least I hope not. This was honestly kind of torture after a little while and I really hated almost the entire lineup outside of the various coffees I tried. So with no further ado, let’s get into it.
Edit: A little more ado, actually. It has come to my attention that my international friends may not fully know what I mean when I mention “pumpkin spice”. Pumpkin spice is the colloquial name for the spice blend commonly added to pumpkin pies in the US, most commonly being cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and ginger. It does not include any actual pumpkin and is a common flavor profile here in the autumn, largely due to the huge popularity of Starbuck’s pumpkin spice latte.
So now, for real, let’s get into it:
Terrible “Treats”
- Archer Farms – Pumpkin Spice Oatmeal: I absolutely abhor oatmeal. I think breakfast is a sacred meal and I personally think it’s sad and depressing to overlook the huge amount of incredible breakfast foods available to us to instead eat a sad bowl of wet sludge. This box of oatmeal has done nothing to improve my overall opinion of oatmeal. What did catch me by surprise is that this oatmeal was terrible in the weirdest way it could have been terrible. It had almost no flavor to it whatsoever. While I thought that the typical pumpkin spice flavor profile would fit a bowl of oatmeal about as well as any flavor profile could, I would never identify this oatmeal as being pumpkin spice flavored. After adding a touch of salt, I picked up the faintest hint of cinnamon as if at some point in its past a cinnamon stick may have farted in the general direction of this oatmeal, but that’s it. And the oatmeal itself was awful. I followed the directions on the back of the box and it still came out a watery mess with largely uncooked, toothsome oat flakes. This gets a hard pass from me. Rating: 1/5
- Bonne Maman – Pumpkin Spice Spread: I had high hopes for this one. I absolutely love apple butter and thought that the idea of a pumpkin spice spread could be somewhat similar. I still think that could be the case if I tried a similar product made by a different company, but this one was a huge disappointment. Upon my initial taste I was a touch letdown as I found this spread to be slightly bland, but then a really strong acidic and fruity kick came in on the backend that absolutely spoiled everything. Looking at the ingredients, this appears to have lemon juice in it, which I understand as a touch of acid would make the flavors here pop, but this was just too much. It gave the whole spread a borderline sour kick that was really unpleasant with the warming spices and borderline savory pumpkin. This is slightly better than the oatmeal, but not by much. Rating: 2/5
- Favorite Day – Pumpkin Spice Whipped Non-Dairy Topping: As you will see later on in the coffee section, I’m lactose intolerant and my wife is straight-up allergic to dairy, so we never have actual milk products in our house. This is another one that sounded promising, but good god this was awful. The whipped cream itself was actually towards the upper end of dairy-free whipped creams that I’ve had, but the pumpkin spice flavor really ruined this one for me. The spices themselves were fairly tame, but there was also a really prominent and strong artificial taste that reminded me of perfume or chemicals. Absolutely awful. Just make your own whipped cream and hit it with a dash of pumpkin pie spices if you want to try something like this out. Rating: 1/5
- Jelly Belly – Pumpkin Pie: I know that jelly beans are a contentious snack to begin with, but I really do like some flavors of Jelly Belly. That said, I’ve also tried their Beanboozled challenges enough to know that there are some truly evil sickos working at Jelly Belly who have no moral issues with unleashing true horrors upon the snacking populace. I sadly think they were the ones who came up with this flavor. The bag advertised a tasty slice of pumpkin pie with a very picturesque dollop of whipped cream on it. The bean itself just served up scented candle. If you gave these to me blindfolded, I would have never in a million years identified them as pumpkin pie. I honestly would’ve guessed that these were flavored something like “how the mall Bath and Body Works smells” or something like that. Wretched. Rating: 1/5
- Milano – Pumpkin Spice: Growing up, I really liked Milano cookies. My mom would keep them in the fridge for some reason, so I would always call them “refrigerator cookies” and I would gobble them up like a little gremlin. That said, every single time I’ve had them as an adult I have found them to be incredibly bland and have not enjoyed the texture of the cookie itself at all. Adding a little stripe of orange pumpkin spiced goo to the edge of the cookie does not do anything to improve my opinion of them. That goo itself pretty much just tasted like a little bit of white chocolate and cinnamon, which really clashed with the overly sweet milk chocolate of the Milano itself. Not outright awful, but also not something I would ever try again. Rating: 2/5
- Oreo – Pumpkin Spice: Finally, some good fuckin’ food. Apologies for the bad Gordan Ramsay impression, but these are pretty much the only food item from this batch of products that I would ever try again. The pumpkin spice flavor is pretty subtle and mostly comes through as just cinnamon, but that gives the cream an almost Biscoff Cookie Butter kinda vibe, which I really dug. These were, like all Oreos, a touch on the sweet side, but when eaten in small quantities, they were pretty good. This combination really worked out well and I will definitely be looking forward to getting these again in future Spooky Seasons. Quite enjoyable and, honestly, a relief at this point in the experiment. Rating: 4/5
- Tate’s Bake Shop –Pumpkin Spice Cookies with White Chocolate Chips: Eh. In a lot of ways, these remind me of a mediocre gingerbread cookie. The flavor profile here is one of ginger, with almost no other spice coming through other than a subtle backend of clove. No cinnamon is really discernable whatsoever, which is a real disappointment as I do tend to like chocolate chip cookies with a dash of cinnamon. The white chocolate is also super underwhelming, with the chips largely just muting the ginger flavor a touch. Not outright awful, but definitely not something I’d ever pick up again. These absolutely taste like a cookie that I impulse bought while checking out of a CVS. Rating: 2/5
- The Vegan Donut Company – Pumpkin Spice Latte Donut: The Vegan Donut Company is one of my favorite donut shops in town, so when I saw that they had a pumpkin spice latte donut, I had to try it. Sadly, it was only okay. As much as I like this donut shop, they do tend to lean into the “more is more” kind of philosophy with their flavors, which is not particularly what I want in a donut, and this one is no exception. This was a typical ring donut with two different frostings, the first being a pumpkin pie frosting across the entire top of the donut, and the second being a dollop of coffee whipped cream on top of the hole itself. I think the idea here is that the two frostings would combine into a pumpkin spice latte flavor, but to me, they came across as two very separate and distinct flavors that didn’t particularly mesh well. The fact that the pumpkin spice frosting was more like a pumpkin pie frosting, complete with a pretty strong pumpkin flavor, was where this one kinda went sideways. That pumpkin flavor really contrasted oddly with the coffee in the whipped cream and was discordant and fairly odd. Overall, this donut was very much on the overly sweet side of things (why is this so common with pumpkin spice flavored snacks?), so I don’t think I’d get this one again. This donut shop is really great though, this just wasn’t their finest creation.Rating: 3/5
- Wiley Wallaby – Candy Corn Licorice Drops: I’m sure the name of this snack alone loses the vast majority of you. Here’s where I will admit that I’m a sicko in that I like both candy corn and black licorice. I couldn’t really conceptualize what the two would taste like when smooshed together, and I still don’t know because these taste nothing like that promise. These basically taste like an overly sweet and stale marshmallow covered in an M&M-like candy coating. Upon initial tasting, they aren’t awful, but there’s a lingering overly sweet aftertaste that is quite unpleasant. The texture also becomes borderline intolerable after more than a few. I could see how someone with significantly more of a sweet tooth than me could get into these, but for me, these just didn’t work at all. Rating 2/5
- Zachary – Pumpkin Spice Halloween Pretzel: These came highly recommended to me by my brother-in-law and his girlfriend. Upon first glance, they seemed innocent enough. These appear to just be a pretzel twist coated in white chocolate with some black and orange striping on them. I really like chocolate-covered pretzels. As a result, I was optimistic about these. But alas, I am just a simple fool. There is no pleasure where I currently am, and I am unsure if I’ll ever find it again. The first, and only, thing you taste when biting into one of these is just the immense, overpowering flavor of ginger, almost to the point of this reminding me of a significantly over-sweet gingerbread cookie. There is no pretzel, there is no cinnamon, nutmeg, or clove. There is only ginger. Ginger, sugar, and stale pretzel. If the pretzel still had some snap to it, or even more pronounced salt to give my tastebuds some reprieve from the ginger assault, I could maybe see these working. But alas, there is no reprieve. There is no relief. There is only the sweet, suffocating flavor of a shitty gingerbread snack masquerading as pumpkin spice. Rating: 1/5
Competent Coffees
- Bones Coffee – Pear-anormal Brew Spiced Caramel Pear: Yes, I am a goblin who drinks flavored coffee. Life is too short for me to mess around trying to find subtle notes of tasty things in my coffee when I can instead just flavor-blast my tongue every morning. I generally like Bones Coffee as my daily coffee of choice, but was somewhat apprehensive of this flavor in concept. I’ve found a lot of their fruit flavors to be overwhelmingly artificial and feared that this one would be similar. I’m happy to report that wasn’t the case. I didn’t really get much spice of caramel out of this coffee, but there is a faint backend of fruity pear that kinda reminded me a touch of some Kona coffees I’ve had. Pretty solid overall. I think I could see myself ordering a single bag of this in the fall from now on to enjoy with the rest of my Spooky Season coffee lineup. Rating: 3/5
- Califia Farms – Pumpkin Spice Oat Barista: As I mentioned before, I am lactose intolerant. Thankfully, I do find that oat milk makes a really solid alternative for espresso-based drinks and this one is honestly pretty fantastic. I’m pretty new to making espresso drinks at home, so while I’ve used this mostly to make iced lattes with espresso from a Nespresso pod, these drinks have come out really fantastic. If you have the means of making espresso at home and are looking for a good way to recreate a pumpkin spice latte, this is a fantastic choice. The only thing holding this back from being a 5/5 is that I didn’t like this nearly as much in a warm latte, but I will also admit that my milk steaming skills are still real weak, so that may entirely be on me. Rating: 4/5
- Goodkind Coffee – Fall Latte, Oat Milk: Despite this article obviously being inspired by Starbucks’ pumpkin spice latte, I don’t really go to Starbucks much. I just have too many significantly better local coffee shops to choose from. This place is in the running for my favorite coffee shop in the Cleveland area and I’ve never really had a bad drink from them. Their take on the typical pumpkin spice latte is a bit different, as theirs comes with a touch of maple and a much more cinnamon-forward spice mix which is really satisfying. I am definitely going to keep slamming these for the next few months while they are available. Rating: 4/5
- Goodkind Coffee – Newton’s Latte, Oat Milk: Like I said, this is one of my favorite coffee shops in the Cleveland area and I go here A LOT. This latte sounded really good on paper, but kinda tasted a bit out of balance and didn’t work as well as I had hoped. The flavor profile here was something akin to a spiced caramel apple, with apple butter and caramel syrup. As spiced cider is one of my absolute favorite things of all-time, I had high hopes for this one, but the caramel syrup really overpowered any flavor I would have otherwise gotten from the apple butter. Still a good drink, but not one I think I’d get again given how much better the Fall Latte was. Rating: 3/5
- Starbucks – Pumpkin Spice Latte, Oat Milk, No Whip: I mean, I had to end this article on this, right?This was honestly a lot better than I remembered. While I like the concept of a pumpkin spice latte, I’ve never really loved Starbucks take on the drink as it has always been overwhelmingly sweet for me. Without the whipped cream and using oat milk, that sweetness was a lot more toned down which allowed me to enjoy this a lot more. I still greatly prefer the options from my local coffee shops, but if I’m away from home and don’t have access to those, this wasn’t a terrible alternative. A totally enjoyable and competent coffee. Rating: 3/5
The Cult Classic 
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