Pumpkin spice is usually some combination of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice and the eye of newt. Calling it pumpkin spice is like calling the NBA team in Utah the "Jazz."
Nonsensical.
Yet we've fallen for it, in the biggest triumph of American marketing since we thought "Happy Days" was funny. Watch "Happy Days" sometime. It's not funny. Never was, but we were told it was funny. We obliged.
We're now told pumpkin spice flavoring is great and is what autumn tastes like. We oblige.
The pumpkin spice ruse started with Starbucks in 2003. It's the same company that told us that "venti" is a size, frappuccino is a word, that it's a "mistake" when they foul up writing our names on the cups (and we share on social media, giving Starbucks free advertising) and that there was a controversy over their holiday coffee cups, requiring us to buy their coffee to prove we're open-minded.
Starbucks told us in 2003 that pumpkin spice latte was how to celebrate autumn.
People like it, which is fine – no different from Starbucks selling eggnog lattes in December and McDonald's selling Shamrock Shakes around St. Patrick's Day. It was a seemingly harmless diversion.
Then it spread. Pretty soon, you couldn't walk down the street without seeing advertisement for a pumpkin spice product.
Pumpkin spice tea. Pumpkin spice pancakes (well . . . sure!). Pumpkin spice gelato. Pumpkin spice peanut butter.
It continued.
Pumpkin spice cough drops (cough drops!). Pumpkin spice pretzels. Pumpkin spice butter. Pumpkin spice Pringles chips. Pumpkin spice Cheerios. Pumpkin spice Oreos. (OK. The last three have plenty of flavor varieties, so it's OK. Even though pumpkin spice, again, isn't really a spice and rarely contains pumpkin.)
It's over the top. It's marketing. Starbucks launched a campaign that has us craving something that didn't exist in 2002. It created the illusion that their product is linked to the arrival of autumn and Halloween and the holiday season and cool, crisp nights.
Fine for coffee, maybe. But butter? Cough drops? Gelato?
There's no end in sight and it's getting worse.
The idea went fully off the rails earlier this year when San Francisco-based, all-natural deodorant maker Native, which previously offered such scents as coconut and vanilla, apricot and white peach, and cypress and cedar, launched a new line.
Pumpkin spice latte deodorant.
Seriously.
Not only does it smell like pumpkin spice (again, not really a spice. And pumpkin is rarely included), it allegedly smells like a pumpkin spice latte.
Your armpit can smell like the most popular drink of autumn.
This is no knock on companies that are using pumpkin spice flavors and scents – they're just chasing the market.
This is a cry for the America consumer to see clearly. We're being exploited. We're being played. We're being molded into what Big Coffee and Big Cookie and Big Butter and Big Deodorant want us to be, so we'll buy their products.
Stop the madness. Buy a pumpkin spice latte if you need it, but stop there.
Take back fall. Take back pumpkins. We can do better than this.
And when we win, remember that the revolution was started by me, the official pumpkin spice columnist of autumn.
Reach Brad "Pumpkin Spice" Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.
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