Starbucks’ 2020 Holiday Drink Lineup

Sweet, salty, unique, hot, or cold — no matter how you decide to celebrate the holiday season it could include the usage of one of those adjectives to describe a drink of your choice from this year’s line-up of Starbucks Holiday Drinks. Each year many chain restaurants and coffee shops come up with winter specials to spice up the menu and generate new business around the holidays. For 2020, Starbucks released 6 new exciting and unique recipes to be added to the drink menu. We decided that instead of making you go out and spend $7 on a coffee you might not enjoy, we would try all of them for you! 

To gain an inside perspective, we talked to Scituate High School senior and Scituation editor Lauren Chiasson who is an employee at Starbucks. We asked Chiasson her opinion on what the most popular drink is and she said, “Every year the Peppermint Mocha is by far the most popular.” Scituate High School students in the past have had an unspoken tradition of bringing in coffee every Wednesday after a late start and Starbucks was always a popular destination. Even with our hybrid schedule and being disconnected from our peers, the trend has still kept up. In response to asking how often SHS students come through Starbucks, Chiasson said,  “I see all of my classmates at Starbucks all the time — it’s rare I go a day without seeing anyone.” 

When determining who frequently gives their money to the Starbucks corporation, we instantly thought of SHS’s mathematics teacher Phill Blake. Blake is a professional Starbucks cuisine critic with a gift for finding the beauty within all coffee. 

 “Ohh dang… CARAMEL BRÛLÉE LATTE,” Blake responded when asked about his favorite holiday drink, which captures the essence of the drink entirely. Amazing us with his statement, we questioned whether we should even continue to share our opinions or our coffee journey, but we knew the people needed our exquisite inputs as well. 

Here are this year’s official carefully calculated ratings on Starbucks’ 2020 Holiday Drinks Collection:

Caramel Brûlée latte: 6/10 Very similar to a caramel latte, but more expensive. A bit sharper and has much more sugar. The hot version would’ve been better.

Peppermint Mocha latte: 5/10 A bit like a bitter hot chocolate and doesn’t taste much like coffee, wouldn’t recommend as iced 

Eggnog latte: 8/10 Had a very homey feel and was nice to sip on during the holidays. The nutmeg was good and was very good in combo with coffee 

Toasted White Chocolate Mocha latte: 9/10 Reminds you of sitting by a fire and watching a Christmas movie, very good iced or hot.