We Tasted Starbucks' Fall Menu And It's An All-Star Lineup

As summer simmers down, fall menus are starting to heat up. Starbucks has always been a sort of de facto modern leader in fall-flavored drinks and bites — so much so that even leaks of its fall menu becomes news. This year, the coffee chain is bringing back some classics in addition to rolling out a few new items to round out its 2024 fall menu.

Joining the PSL on the fall beverages menu is the returning Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew and the new Iced Apple Crisp Nondairy Cream Chai. Over in the baked goods section, the perennial favorite Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin returns, as does the Baked Apple Croissant, which was just elevated to year-round status alongside the Pumpkin & Pepita Loaf. Standing out among the crowd is a new creature — the Raccoon Cake Pop. Over at Starbucks Reserve locations, Pumpkin Spice Cake can be washed down with the new boozy option — the Pumpkin Spice Chai Martini — and the another that sounds boozy, but isn't — the Pumpkin Spice Whiskey Barrel-Aged Cold Brew.

Pumpkin spice, apples, and raccoons are running wild at Starbucks! I got a sneak peek, eat, and sip of the fall menu and am now ready to spill the coffee beans. This chew and review is based on taste, sense of fall, and overall lovability.

Some recommendations are based on first-hand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.

This year, Starbucks' fall menu is debuting on its earliest date yet — August 22. The new Iced Apple Crisp Nondairy Cream Chai and Racoon Cake Pop will be available for purchase at participating locations while supplies last. That same date also applies to the Pumpkin Spice Chai Martini, which will only be available at Starbucks Reserve locations in Seattle, New York, and Chicago. You must be 21 years or older in order to purchase and consumer the martini.

The Raccoon Cake Pop and Pumpkin Spice Chai Martini come in one size only. The Iced Apple Crisp Nondairy Cream Chai is available to order in the standard four sizes, and are housed in the recently redesigned plastic cold cups. 

All items can be ordered in-store at the counter, or at the drive-thru, where available. Advance ordering for pick-up for the Iced Apple Crisp and Racoon Cake Pop is available through Starbucks' app or website.

Starbucks' Iced Apple Crisp Nondairy Cream Chai is a salad of words, but as an actual drink, turned out to be less complicated. It looks like an ordinary creamy drink. Its top was filled with stark white foam, with a bottom that looked like pumpkin milk. Taking a whiff of the foam, it smelled like a cooled, spiced apple pie.

Every sip of this drink couldn't avoid the foam at the top, and that turned out to be a great problem to have. The foam had a beautiful body to it, with a delicious green apple flavoring. Even though the foam was nondairy oat milk, it passed itself off rather nicely as the genuine article that comes from a cow. When I finally breached the bottom contents of the drink, where the spiced chai lay, the apple flavoring still reigned supreme. As a whole, it added up to a tall drink that felt like of a fall version of eggnog. I literally couldn't stop drinking it.

Looking at this cake pop, I assumed it was probably mass produced by a machine, but it looked like it was painstakingly handmade by a crafty artisan. This cute little feller, with its Betty-Pop-like popping eyes, is coated with purple-gray chocolate icing. You almost don't want to disturb it, and may even find it disturbing to bite into its head. When I finally proceeded, it tasted like a typical cake pop. The interior has vanilla cake with buttercream, which is rich in butter and sugar.

While this pop didn't look very big from the outside, its cakey interior was compact, hiding a super denseness within. This ended up being quite a lot of cake.

Fall fever isn't just in full swing at Starbucks, but also at its Starbucks Reserve locations. If you've never had the pleasure of being at one, the menu is overloaded with creative coffees, gourmet foods, and booze. For this autumn, something wicked this way comes in the shape of a martini class — the Pumpkin Spice Chai Martini.

The surface of this drink looked so delightfully dainty. I actually pulled my phone's flashlight up to it to take a closer look at its beauty. Little dusted cinnamon shavings adorn a creamy golden foam. 

My first sip turned out to be quite a mouthful. After hearing of the components of this martini, I knew it truly was a lot under the hood. Maharaja oolong tea gets drizzled in pumpkin spice sauce and sloshed up in Kalak vodka. That all added up to quite the potent potable, not so dissimilar to an after dinner drink like Kahlua or Baileys Irish Cream. Further sips felt like a raging battle between the drink's sugary-spiced sweetness and its alcohol body. This heady concoction made for quite the slow sipper.

On the surface, Starbucks Reserve Pumpkin Spice Whiskey Barrel-Aged Cold Brew was practically identical to Starbucks' Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew. A yellowish-brown head of foam was topped with a generous amount of cinnamon spice. The airy foam sits atop mocha-colored cold brew coffee, just chilling at the bottom of the glass.

Don't let the name "Pumpkin Spice Whiskey Barrel-Aged Cold Brew" throw you. The word "whiskey" pricked up my ears when I heard it was coming my way, but sadly learned that this Starbucks Reserve drink is completely free of alcohol. However, the oaky taste of a whiskey barrel is every present in this drink. It was a nice new twist to the existing allure of a pumpkin spiced cold brew drink.

The new beverages on Starbucks' fall menu are multi-faceted drinks starring on opposite sides of the spectrum. The Iced Apple Crisp drink is love at first taste and hard to keep away from; I wish it came with free refills. The Pumpkin Spice Whiskey Barrel-Aged Cold Brew is a solid brew, but I actually wish the whiskey barrel taste was also accompanied by some actually whiskey. The Martini, on the other hand, was a little harder to grapple with. Its strong flavor makes it worthy of a one-drink maximum. Still, I'd rather have a zillion of those than have to revisit whatever Dunkin's Spiked Pumpkin Spice Iced Latte was. And, if you happen to find yourself in a Starbucks Reserve on a crisp autumn night, the martini would make for a nice nightcap to imbibe by a toasty fire.

As for the Raccoon Cake Pop, while it was delicious, there was nothing really new here in terms of taste or flavor. It was simply another playful, adorable creature on a stick that makes one want to play with their food. All in all, I'd say Starbucks' 2024 fall menu is filled with some new hits that we might just see return next year.