11 Ways To Revamp Your Typical Starbucks Order For Fall

If you are new to festive fall fun, but can't quite find a handhold, making small tweaks to your typical coffee order is the perfect way to "fallify" your Starbucks visits. Fortunately, with the many seasonal sauces, syrups, cold foams, and basic year-round options, there are plenty of ways to celebrate the season, even if pumpkin spice lattes aren't really your thing.

In the years I worked at Starbucks as a barista, I loved watching how the seasons would change the menu throughout the year. I eagerly awaited the new drinks we would create and excitedly watched how customers would take these new additions and implement them into their already favorite beverages. Today, as a regular, I get even more enjoyment out of the seasonal menus, playing around with seasonal ingredients. Small changes can make such a difference, especially when it comes to seasonal offerings.

Many of these changes can be made right in the app when ordering. After selecting your drink, you'll see an option to customize it, and this is where you'll find the different ways to personalize and perfect your order. However, if messing with the app is uncomfortable for you, baristas are always available to take your order at the cash register.

Even if you know little else about fall drinks, there's a good chance you've heard of a pumpkin spice latte. When the weather starts to get just a little bit of a nip in the air, Starbucks unveils its long popular latte with over a 20-year history, the Starbucks PSL. To the delight of non-PSL drinkers everywhere, you don't need to order a pumpkin spice latte, specifically, in order to enjoy a pumpkin-flavored drink. Rather, this sauce is available in any drink you might care to add it to: hot, iced, or even blended.

The quickest way to give your favorite drink a fall theme is by adding some pumpkin spice syrup to it. If you happen to love a white mocha, you are halfway to one of the more interesting and delightfully named fall secret menu drinks at Starbucks: a Cinderella latte. The Cinderella latte is available in iced and hot versions, though the hot one probably captures that fall feel more fully. That said, I'm an iced girlie through and through, so even I'm a hard sell to this point. Simply ask for a white mocha, but request that your barista replace half the pumps of white mocha with pumpkin spice sauce.

This isn't the only place you can add pumpkin spice to your drink, but you'll want to ensure that your drink is using a warm component like espresso. This espresso is necessary to help melt the pumpkin sauce into your drink and allow it to fully combine. Unlike other syrups Starbucks offers, pumpkin spice comes in sauce form, similar to the mocha or white chocolate mocha also available. As a result, it requires melting to avoid a globby, clumpy gulp of coffee.

As a cold coffee fan, I admit that switching to a hot beverage may be a little bit difficult, but if the weather is cool enough, changing your iced drink to a warmer version is the perfect way to make it into the ideal autumnal beverage. Of course, there are certain drinks that don't come as warm offerings, but a majority of them do.

The primary difference between a cold coffee drink versus a hot coffee is what happens with your milk. In cold beverages, the milk gets poured right from the milk jug to your drink — no frothing or aerating here. Warm milk, on the other hand, gets steamed. This process warms the milk and adds a velvety texture of tiny bubbles. The more hearty your milk, the more thick the bubble content.

Please note that if a refresher is your typical beverage, it's going to be difficult to find a hot version of that, but not impossible. This isn't something you'll be able to easily order from the app, but most baristas would be more than willing to help you recreate a hot version, even if it requires some careful punching of the order keys.

Of course, hot drinks aren't the only way to enjoy fall beverages. In fact, Starbucks has come out with some absolutely delicious icy fall beverages. One of the best parts of these beverages, in my estimation, is the pumpkin spice cold foam, a perfectly festive fall topper. While some wait around all year for PSL to return, I eagerly await the return of pumpkin spice cold foam. I've even been known to make my own pumpkin spice creamer to create delicious cold foam, but it's never really the same.

In any case, Starbucks has made it very easy, if a little bit expensive, to add cold foam to your favorite cold beverage. You'll just ask for it at the counter or request it as a topping in the customization section of the app. The prices fluctuate from location to location, but most of the time I've ordered cold foam as an addition to my icy drinks, it's been anywhere from $1.25 to $1.50.

One of my favorite ways to make one of my go-to drinks into a fall version is to add pumpkin spice cold foam on an iced brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso. I always get a little bit of a sideways eye from baristas with this addition because it means mixing non-dairy milk in the drink with a dairy-filled topping in the cold foam. If you order in person, they may even ask you if that's what you actually want to do. Unless you have a dairy allergy, it's so delicious, and definitely something you'll want to try.

It's a war as old as time: pumpkin versus apple. Which fall flavor will win out? One makes for the oh-so-perfect social-media-baiting pumpkin spice, and the other is a flavor that brings to mind a nostalgic fall country visit to the apple orchard. To capture such a feel, look no further than the apple brown sugar syrup at Starbucks. Admittedly, this is one syrup you will need to handle with care; in my experience, it just doesn't go with anything. I've had the best luck when I've replaced brown sugar syrup with it.

To that end, consider using it in your shaken espresso instead of brown sugar syrup. I also love it with chai or even as syrup in a steamer. Looking for a different syrup in your caramel apple spice? The apple brown sugar syrup is a wonderful substitution.

If apples are really your thing, take the apple brown sugar syrup to its zenith and try it in steamed apple juice. Apple on apple will only make for a more deliciously fall-themed beverage, but it's just the beginning. If you're longing for fall throughout the year, there are plenty of ways to upgrade steamed apple juice to find your new favorite drink.

One of the most inventive ways to celebrate fall with steamed apple juice is by adding chai concentrate to it. This will also introduce caffeine, but with a slew of spicy seasonings, the combination will take your steamed apple juice from something you might find in a child's juice box to an elevated version that will be perfectly reminiscent of the season.

Steamed apple juice is available on the menu year-round, so there's no reason to wait for the fall to play with it, but it certainly becomes even more popular during the apple-picking season. As a result, don't be surprised if your store is out of apple juice at one time or another. In my experience, the stock does tend to run a little low around this time of year.

One of my favorite nuttier syrups from Starbucks has always been a toffee nut syrup. It goes well with many drinks, and now, after the arrival of some fall favorites, Starbucks has introduced a new line of fall drinks with a new fall flavor: pecan. This flavor is slightly reminiscent of candied pecans, and I like pecan syrup as a supplement to a warm espresso-based drink.

Like other fall favorites, it goes well with white mocha or even all on its own. Those who really love the flavor of pecan can enjoy it as part of their cold foam on a chilly beverage. I struggle to see how it would work in an iced latte, given that the pecan flavor is such a warm and smooth one, and coffee can be biting. In the cold foam on top of a drink should also work quite well. There's enough separation of flavors for it to feel apart from the coffee.

To really drive that pecan flavor home, you could request some pecan crunch topping, too. This will give your drinks a little extra touch of texture and flavor.

Most people order their espresso-based Starbucks drinks and don't think too much about the actual espresso that's going in the drink. If you don't give it a second thought, in many drinks, you end up with a basic, signature roast of the espresso blend of coffee. It's hardy and dark, and some might even say a little bitter. Although I enjoy the basic espresso roast, I tend to prefer the blonde espresso. If you're interested in fall drinks, you just might find it tasty, too.

The blonde espresso roast allows fall flavors like pumpkin and pecan or even apple to shine more. You may find that some of the fall drinks that are already on the menu use blonde roast as a base, but that shouldn't stop you from exploring this mild espresso in other drinks that typically have the regular option. This is a great change to make in conjunction with adding a fall syrup. All on its own, it won't do much to bring your drink into fall, but with a syrup, you'll really be on to something.

If you are a frequent Starbucks customer, there's a good chance that you're not the only one in the family who gets in on the ordering fun. After all, kids' little eyes and ears follow us everywhere, and if your little ones are anything like mine, they're always looking to do exactly what their adults do. Therefore, I propose letting your munchkins in on the fall flavor fun, too. Starbucks even has a ready-to-order drink that feels absolutely perfect for the youngest Starbucks fans in your life. It is the pumpkin spice creme, a play on the vanilla cream the chain offers year-round. This drink is pretty simple and includes steamed milk with pumpkin spice syrup and whipped cream. Be sure that you request that it is made a little less hot and in an appropriately sized kids' size, which is an 8-ounce cup — slightly smaller than the tall 12-ounce cup.

If pumpkin isn't really your little one's favorite, caramel apple spice is always a great fallback option. Alternatively, consider a white mocha steamer with just a single pump of pecan syrup. It'll be mellow but still sweet and taste something like a nutty hot chocolate. No matter what you choose, be sure to be cognizant of caffeine content. Anything with tea or espresso will have caffeine in it, which you may wish to avoid.

With their spiciness, chai drinks are an ideal base for fall favorites. Since there are so many fall options that tend to be on the mild side, the flavors sometimes get tempered by the chai, so it might be worthwhile to take down the number of chai pumps you order to help the fall flavors shine through. Considering all of the fall syrups readily available at Starbucks, there's not a single one of them that wouldn't be enjoyable with chai. If chai just doesn't give you the same caffeine boost that espresso does, you can always add espresso to your fall chai drinks to make them a dirty chai, a classic secret menu drink.

I love this fall revamp because a Starbucks chai is a flexible beverage that is as good warm as it is iced. So, even if the weather is cooler, and you still want something that gives a little bit of a warm feel, chai is right there for you. Those spices do a whole lot of heavy lifting in these drinks.

I'm not sure what it is about the crisp air and falling leaves that make me think of sweatpants, but the image is forever plastered in my mind. To me, the beverage equivalent of autumn sweatpants is a warm breve espresso drink. Breve, quite simply, means that the drink is prepared using half and half rather than the default 2% milk or another dairy-free alternative.

If that sounds exceptionally heavy, then you are imagining it absolutely correctly. This is not a drink you sip lightly and move along your way. It is meant to be slowly and deeply enjoyed. Again, it feels like being wrapped in a warmth that little else than sweatpants and thick steamed milk can accomplish. Although you can certainly order iced drinks made breve, without the steamed aspect, it would certainly lose its warming charm, so this is a tip more for the warm fall drinks than anything else. While this is a change you can make throughout the year to any of your espresso drinks, choosing breve in the fall season is the perfect base for any of the fall syrups or just a simple way to take your default coffee and make it into something that just feels more warming and comforting — like sweatpants.

If you really want to go for a fall revamp, consider swapping out your typical drink for a Halloween-style secret menu creation. While there are plenty out there, two have really caught my eye over the years, and they couldn't be more fitting for the season: the vampire drink and the Hocus Pocus latte.

Between the two, the Hocus Pocus latte is probably the easiest to order. Predictably so, this pop culture-inspired secret menu drink begins with a pumpkin spice latte. Request that some mocha and apple brown sugar syrup be added. This tends to be a little bit of a heavy syrup drink, so it's best to order one pump of each syrup for each size. For example, a tall would get one pump of each, a grande would get two pumps of each, and a venti would get three. Yes, you're in for a sugar overload, but what could be more perfect for Halloween?

Not to be outdone, the vampire drink will really take your social media by storm this Halloween with a frozen concoction that may just be too cool to drink. This is a layered drink, and I have found that layered drinks do not translate well when ordering from the app, so this is one you'll want to order in person. It begins with a base of mocha sauce at the bottom of the cup with some whipped cream on top of that. For the Frappuccino part, ask for a white chocolate creme Frappuccino to be poured on top of the mocha and whipped cream. To top the whole thing off, kindly request that your barista drizzle strawberry puree around the top of the drink before adding whipped cream. Want more gore? Ask for more strawberry puree on top and snap a picture before adding that domed lid. Once everything is poured together, the chocolate sauce will sit nicely on the bottom while the white will become slowly red from that strawberry puree around the top.