It’s back. The dreaded three-worded drink that all Starbucks employees are asked to make every second of every day during the fall is back. The pumpkin flavored drink that will have people chanting incantations at baristas, and poor Americans watching as their loved ones get consumed by the ever-hungry Corporate Greed.
I’m talking about the Pumpkin Spice Latte.
The Pumpkin Spice Latte, or PSL as those who just desperately need the next fall-flavored caffeine hit call it, is the MVP of Starbucks’ seasonal drinks. With roughly 20 million sold a year, the drink brings in almost 10% of the company’s seasonal revenue.
This thing is stupidly popular. In the span of just four years – one high school experience – Starbucks will have sold more PSLs than the most popular album in music history: Michael Jackson’s 1982 Thriller, coming in at 70 million copies ever sold. That’s insane.
So, what makes this drink so popular? Is it the combination of nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, and pumpkin spices mixed into a delicious espresso? Or was it that one dark and stormy night, Peter Dukes, who invented the PSL, was walking through the woods when suddenly three terrible witches appeared before him and produced from their cauldron the Pumpkin Spice Latte and prophesied that with this drink, Starbucks would grow into an enormous corporate entity. I think it was the latter, but I have no proof.
It’s not just Starbucks. This pumpkin spice craze infects everything from candles to soap and just about every baking recipe imaginable. I even saw a sweatshirt online that was advertised as pumpkin spice. What is the world coming to? Nothing good, that’s for sure.
Luckily for those of us not under the spell of MacBethian witches, myself not included, the pumpkin spice season is just the fall. And the winter. And sometimes the summer, depending on if Starbucks’ revenue has fallen. After that, the world returns to normal, until the spell of the PSL Witches strikes the world again.
