Let’s give McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski some credit — and maybe some absolution for his tiny bite of the Big Arch. One thing he got absolutely right was a prediction he made for this year: “You’re going to see a lot of beverage innovation.”
Chris, my friend, you may bite a burger in a way that insults my humanity, but I must commend you on your soothsaying. We are absolutely living in the most interesting times for beverages — and I love it.
To immerse myself in the sugary, iced world of beverage innovation, I tried out some of the new and weird drinks at a few big chains: Starbucks, Dunkin’, and McDonald’s.
And while I don’t think I would ever order most of them again — some of them were frankly kind of gross — I felt the thrill and invigoration of new frontiers. I felt like what it must’ve felt like to be among the first cavemen to harness fire, to be Watson in the other room when Alexander Graham Bell made his call, to be in the audience of Steve Jobs’ iPhone presentation in 2007.
McDonald’s itself just launched a new drink menu of strange new concoctions this week, so I wanted to try it out. There are some new fruity drinks as well as a twist on the “dirty soda” trend.
I almost ordered the Dirty Dr Pepper, but realized I have always disliked Dr Pepper, so this was not a good place to start. Instead, I went with the Orange Dream, which is Hi-C topped with vanilla cold foam. I also went for the Strawberry Watermelon Refresher, which comes with little strawberry bits. The very kind cashier chatted with me about the new drinks, and said that so far, he’s noticed the Sprite with cream and the Blackberry Passionfruit Refreshers have been the best sellers.
Both drinks are very sweet, and kind of taste like the sum of their parts. I haven’t had Hi-C in many years, possibly decades, and I was pleasantly surprised by how good it is.
Next, I went to Starbucks, the Mecca for tweens and teens after school, to get their Pink Drinks. I had been looking at the Starbucks menu online and saw in the “Trending” section that there was a MrBeast collaboration drink called the Pink Cannon Ball. Obviously, I needed to try that, as well as the odd purple ube drinks.
But when I showed up in person at Starbucks, I felt confused and embarrassed. The Pink Cannon Ball was nowhere to be found on the menu, which listed only classic drinks and a few new seasonal items.
I realized that the wacky stuff, like the MrBeast drink, is probably promoted on the app and website only for online orders.
I appreciate that Starbucks’ in-store menus are streamlined. But this left me in a humiliating position as an adult woman: I had to approach the teenage cashier and ask, “Um, so I heard you guys have a MrBeast drink?”
I also asked, “Um, also I saw something on your website that was, like, purple foam?”
(The cashier was very kind and knew what I was talking about — the Pink Cannon Ball and an iced Ube Coconut Macchiato — although I think no one could have ever made me not feel embarrassed in that moment.)
The ube macchiato was quite good, and I realized this partly because I was happy to have something with the bitterness of actual coffee rather than pure sweetness. My 9-year-old son, whom I had help sample the drinks, thought Cannon Ball was the best of the bunch, although I can’t help but wonder if the MrBeast tie-in clouded his judgment.
My final journey was to Dunkin’ to try some of their latest drinks. They had the biggest array of new items. I sampled four things: the Very Cherry Daydream Refresher, an Iced Vanilla Matcha with Marshmallow Foam, a Glamberry Dunkin’ Refresher, and the Dunkin’ Dirty Soda, which was Pepsi with coffee milk.
As a native New Englander, this is emotionally hard for me to say: These drinks were all pretty disgusting. (My kids liked the Glamberry and the Cherry daydreams, though the 9-year-old noted it tasted a bit like medicine). My husband said that the dirty soda tasted a bit like a White Russian, which made me think it would actually be pretty good with some vodka.
As a lifelong Dunkin’ customer, I have always known not to mess with the non-coffee drinks; that is not a path you don’t want to walk in this beloved institution. Whatever Dunkin’ does with fruity drinks is not my business; these are for children and not for me. (Indeed, I did see a group of tween girls ordering a bunch of these drinks at Dunkin’ while I was there, and they seemed very happy with them.)
Will I ever order any of these again? Almost certainly not.
I will stick to my regular order of plain coffee or Diet Coke next time I’m at a chain. But do I appreciate that there’s all this strange and wonderful stuff happening out in the world of beverages? Yes, yes I do!
I’ll never wear a couture gown, but I enjoy watching the Met Gala. And I enjoy watching the Olympics even if I don’t ski. I can appreciate the wild and beautiful world of experimentation with strange new fruity beverages. We are living in an exciting time.
Oh, by the way: Chris, at McDonald’s: You were right!
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