If you’re like me, you get seriously excited the first time you see that the Pumpkin Spice Latte is coming back around. It’s like the Labor Day of the culinary world. An unequivocal sign that fall is here. Of course, Starbucks has had the monopoly on the PSL. They’ve been serving up that delectable drink for almost 20 years.
But other franchises eventually got on board the PSL train and started offering their own versions of pumpkin drinks. And in the modern age of DIYers, a lot of people started making them at home. I don’t know about you, but I just can’t get the one I make at home taste as good as the Starbucks one. Well, there’s a reason for that.
The Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte has more fat, sugar and salt than you’d probably allow yourself to put into one cup at home. It’s easy to drink all that up when it’s delivered as a single drink out a drive thru window. Today.com once reported that a 16-oz PSL at Starbucks contained 18 grams of fat and 50 grams of sugar!
……What happened? Sorry I fainted. But seriously, that’s your whole day’s worth of sugar allowance. In one 16-ounce drink. Yikes!
So we CAN make our sacred Pumpkin Spice Latte at home. It just takes a combination of milk, coffee, pumpkin puree, and pumpkin pie spices. How you sweeten it is where the calories can add up. Some people use plain old sugar. Others get creative with agave or maple syrup. And don’t get me started on all the fancy extras like vanilla bean or homemade caramel.
But what about those of us who want to branch out from the Starbucks PSL and don’t have the time (or patience) to make one at home? Well, there are many other places in Las Vegas where you can find pumpkin drinks that might become your new favorite. Here are a few. We even threw a couple non-coffee pumpkin drinks in there for the caffeine-free weirdos…I mean people.
–Wendy Rush, 96.3KKLZ Las Vegas
