6 days Ago By Sara Guymon
ROCHESTER — Pumpkin spice lattes are the season drink of choice for many, but what other options are available for locals in Rochester? Starbucks jump-started the fall drink season a little early this year. The classic pumpkin spice latte, or PSL, was made available to customers on Aug. 22, 2024.
It was accompanied by a variety of other drinks featuring pumpkin, chai and apple flavors. ADVERTISEMENT Starbucks was not the only coffee shop to play with the apple flavor this fall season. Novios Cafe has added apple cider to its menu along with a Granny Apple Italian Soda.
The drink is made of sparkling water and an apple syrup that gives a taste similar to a caramel apple lollipop. They also have a caffeinated apple drink. Their Caramel Apple Red Bull Infusion has been a popular drink option for those who are looking for a non-coffee drink.
“We've got a caramel apple butter that goes in there, and then it's a red Bull with it,” said Dalton Shirley, co-owner of Novios Cafe. “So that way, if you aren't looking for coffee, but you still want to have the caffeine, there’s still something. We sell a lot of our Berry Blast Red Bull infusions, which we tried to make something with Red Bull and add that fall spice to it.
” One of their most popular fall drinks has been the Fall Equinox Latte. The Fall Equinox Latte is a latte made with goat milk and flavors of orange, vanilla and cayenne. “It's good because it gives you a little bit of heat, but it also gives you that cinnamon, that gives you the fall, and orange,” Shirley said.
“The goat milk does a good job at neutralizing some of the heat.” The last two season menu items are the Pumpkin Pie Latte and the Maple Spice Vita. Their Pumpkin Pie Latte features pumpkin puree, maple syrup, whipped cream, and cinnamon whereas the Maple Syrup Vita is a cold press drink with a maple syrup-type flavoring.
Cafe Steam in downtown Rochester decided to lean into a few other flavors. Two of its three specialty drinks have exploded in popularity, but it isn’t the first time seeing some of these drinks. ADVERTISEMENT The Cookie Butter Latte has been the most popular drink on the cafe's seasonal menu when the weather tends to be a little colder.
It was only supposed to be on the menu for a few weeks but has remained a staple due to the popular demand. “The flavor itself is based off of a speculoos cookie that uses a little bit more molasses,” said Will Forsman, owner of Cafe Steam. “It's a harder cookie that has some molasses and brown sugar and some other spices in it that is then pureed into a butter, and then we use that in combination with some more brown sugar in a latte.
So we want something that isn’t overly sweet, but this we've described as richer and as a really heavy body, which works well for a latte.” Frequent Cafe Steam customers also might recognize the other popular drink featured for Fall. The Night Howler was originally a one-time, specialty drink for the Rochester’s Downtown Alliance’s showing of Zootopia for Movies in the Park.
The drink was such a success that they rotate it into the menu from time to time. “I think every person who is in the service industry hopes that a drink or creation, whether it's a cocktail, a menu item or something will be received that well, and to have a rotating menu as such allows us to experiment with things and bring new things out,” Forsman said. Despite these other seasonal drinks, pumpkin spice lattes have dominated the other fall flavors for the last few years.
Each coffee shop around town has its own rendition of what a pumpkin spice latte is supposed to taste like, a coffee paired with fall spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove, but what makes the PSLs different from others? For Cafe Steam, it took staff two years to perfect their pumpkin spice latte. They make their syrups in-house and continued to tweak the recipe until they finally curated their perfect version of the PSL. “I think the biggest difference from our pumpkin spice and others is we take a lot of care in picking all of our seasonal syrups and the ingredients by hand,” Forsman said.
“We make them fresh, whether it's each day or every other day, to ensure that not only the quality is high, but we're able to keep up with the demand that comes with it, the surge in seasonal requests.” ADVERTISEMENT A few other highlights around town include Caribou Coffee’s six pumpkin drinks and Cafe Aqui’s Flufferbutter drink, which is like a pumpkin spice latte infused with butternut squash instead of pumpkin. Typically coffee drinkers can enjoy their fall season drinks until around Thanksgiving.
.
