Limited Time Only: Starbucks' Jack-O-Lantern Frappuccino®
Starbucks have succeeded in being spooky because this one’s gonna haunt me®
What a pleasure it is to have a new permanent home for Limited Time Only, a series where I review limited time only items from fast food chains. It’s been happening for 10 years now, from my old ill-fated blog, to Instagram, and now here. My apologies to all who read on.
The chains are feuding again. The McDonald’s Grimace Shake versus Hungry Jacks’ Space Shake. Two duelling milkshakes. A pair of purple libations more curious than Sydney’s recent resurgence of açai. Which renegade rules the late-night drive-through? I have no idea. I’m brazenly dismissing the great Grimace space shake race and instead turn to an alternative limited time only chilled beverage – the Starbucks Jack-O-Lantern Frappuccino®, a mango… mocha… thing. Consider my interest piqued and my insatiable appetite for Permitted Natural Food Colour 163 on hold. Let’s get Halloweeny.
Without sounding too year-8-chemistry-report-trying-to-bump-up-the-word-count it’s important to note the ingredients of this frappuccino: milk, frappuccino cream base syrup (sweetner), mango and passion fruit juice concentrate with java chips (which I believe are tiny choc chips) and an obligatory cream swirl apogee. Starbucks has graciously listened and learned from my criticism last year concerning seasonal fare transplanted to the wrong hemisphere (pumpkin spice? In October?!). Mango in the springtime, no culinary anachronisms here. I still don’t quite understand the name of this drink, but like all things in life, and to the benefit of every man I’ve recently dated, I approach this experience with zero expectations.
Wait a second, I’ve just made the astute observation that this this beverage, the Jack-O-Lantern Frappuccino® contains no pumpkin and no coffee. W-w-w-w-whhhat the. Regardless, I order the frap, I step outside, I investigate further. Firstly, it’s brown, not orange as the polished promotional image suggests – it’s not even orange like a pumpkin (to reiterate, the Jack-O-Lantern Frappuccino®, named for a pumpkin, contains no pumpkin). Secondly, why has condensation formed below the lid? Does the Jack-O-Lantern Frappuccino® maintain its own ecosystem under there? That’s pretty tropical for an item named after a pumpkin. And thirdly, seriously, what’s with the pumpkin-y name and the purported fruit flavour? Is anybody else seeing this?
Unsurprisingly, like all Australian seasonal Starbucks drinks I’ve experienced (two of them) the first sip is jarring and requires acclimatisation. My initial reaction is an emphatic bleaugh in public for the first time since I was 11. As tropical juice’s biggest fan I'm not down with the crunch of whatever these java pieces are. The rough citric flavours mingled with milk is no good, and my apologies for regressing to year 8 chemistry reportage again, but scientifically shouldn’t this drink be curdling? Starbucks’ frappuccino cream base syrup contains xanthum gum which I assume is what’s maintaining an unnatural pH of each dairy component, and thus is the likely reason why I’m not currently sucking down a cup of ricotta. Madonn. No wonder the flavour of what I’m sipping is not congruent with its temperature, it’s never a good sign when the brain interjects with this information as a polite cease and desist. No whey.
This frappuccino is not quite nauseating but is aggressively tangy with a brittle mouthfeel. It’s frosty in my hand yet I feel I’m sitting in a room five degrees too warm. Is unamalgamated a word? Did I just chug orange juice with a milk chaser? No, I’m standing on the street with a Jack-O-Lantern Frappuccino®. This may be the only limited time only item I find thoroughly unenjoyable.
I’m unsure if the java chips are to mimic the coarse ice of a better frappe, or the seeds of a ripe passion fruit, or what (in all likelihood they’re a standard Starbucks ingredient thrown in as a cheeky treat). They’re poorly suspended and mostly sink to the bottom of the cup so there’s clearly an issue of buoyancy. This peculiar gradient has me shook, but not spooked.
And I still can’t get over the name. Jack-O-Lantern Frappuccino®? THERE IS NO PUMPKIN. What the fuck. One Halloween I walked past a jack-o-lantern carved from a watermelon in my neighbourhood and it rocked. Reveling in imagery of Santa and his herd dressed in shorts and sunnies like a cool summer dude is the only way I experience national pride. Australian and southern-hemisphere appropriation is good but this deceitfully named drank is living in my head rent-free. Consider me haunted.
To enjoy a sun-kissed mango is a guaranteed life pleasure. My parents grew passion fruits on the vine when I was younger. My Bapou and Yiayia’s backyard is abundant with citrus trees, and by eating those mandarins so young I learnt we as mere mortals possess the ability to taste the sun. And I don’t even like the sun. But I wanna suck on the slippery pip of a mango. I wanna scoop those passion fruit seeds with a tiny spoon. I don’t wanna drink this drink. It hasn’t been a treat, it’s been a dang trick because WHY has this frappuccino been named after a literal PUMPKIN when it contains NO PUMPKIN!! I DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU, Jack-O-Lantern Frappuccino®!
I want answers, but what I need is a distraction from this thing. My hand is sticky and the fallen violet jacaranda leaves at my feet have me longing for a cursed purple shake from elsewhere…
Whatever, I’m off to procure some Kensington Prides. And maybe a pumpkin for dinner.