Can we try something new?

Oh, the weather is getting cooler and the Pumpkin Spice fanatics are starting to beat their drums. I like fall too, however, all this pumpkin spice everything is getting ridiculous. Don’t y’all think this marketing ploy has run it’s course already? The Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte is 15 years old this year.

It isn’t even really called pumpkin spice, it is pumpkin pie spice. You know the kind your Granny put in pie on Thanksgiving that made opening the door to her house smell like turkey day holiday heaven?

Pumpkin pie spice is a combination of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, ginger and sometimes real pumpkin. Either you love it or hate it. It’s a polarizing flavor, mainly because of the variety of pumpkin-spiced non food items and consumables on the market gets a little more strange each passing year. Pumpkin pie spice is meant for food, not body sprays, candles, air freshener, and soap. Though I have to admit a particularly spicy candle almost made it home with me, once only once. I was able to resist.

Am I the only one who thinks that things that are pumpkin spice flavored have a weird chemical taste? I just can’t stomach it. The scent smells a little off to me too, hence why I could resist the candle’s allure to jump in my shopping basket.

I feel bad for the other delicious Fall flavors that get over shadowed by the pumpkin craze. How about a caramel vanilla latte or an apple cinnamon muffin? Oh and banana nut bread with rum sauce. I am not saying get rid of pumpkin pie spice all together, just tone it down a notch. I still need the little red top shakes for my real pumpkin pies. I want my house to smell like holiday heaven too.

When I was a kid cherry vanilla was a thing. Not as wide spread as the pumpkin spice apocalypse is today. Adults even fed their babies food from little round glass jars that were full of this smooth sugar filled dessert called Cherry Vanilla pudding. It was so super yummy that adults ate it over cheesecake and ice cream. There you go marketing geniuses! How about a cherry vanilla latte? Baby boomers and Gen X-ers would love it. For the record, the infamous they do not make that sweet cherry vanilla baby food these days. They don’t even sell baby food in the little jars anymore either.

I don’t really know what is worse to me, that people like a thing so much all because someone said it is the latest and greatest, or that it really just smells and tastes horribly fake. You can count me out of the pumpkin spice mania again this year.

I say let’s be original this Fall. Be unique in what you drink and smell. Don’t just jump on a trend because it is the next amazing craze that the rest of the world is following.

Believe in being original.

~Lori O’Gara