The calendar has flipped from spooky to the holiday season, with plenty of local coffee shops embracing the shift with limited autumnal beverages spiked with comforting pumpkin, maple and cinnamon flavors. As of press time, the Dodgers are keeping hope alive for back-to-back World Series wins, and there are plenty of bars and restaurants to watch the game live, as well as those offering blue doughnuts, horchata and other specialty food items that celebrate our home team's season.
Pumpkin spice latte season began at a well-known coffee chain in late August. Thanks to the phenomenon known as pumpkin creep the earlier and earlier arrival of pumpkin-flavored beverages each year pumpkin beer season starts earlier now too. But that's not a bad thing: beers made with pumpkin, and more often pumpkin spice, are already on store shelves and will be hanging around through Thanksgiving or until they run out.
The caramel pumpkin brûlée boasts a pumpkin and salted caramel filling, covered with a layer of soft top, a decadent pumpkin drizzle, and raw sugar sprinkles. It can be enjoyed iced or hot, as a breve, latte, frozen, or chai. The cookie butter latte is made with cookie butter, a swirl of cookie butter drizzle with a soft top, and even more cookie butter drizzle to top it off. It can be enjoyed as a latte, frozen, or as a chai.
Whether you're celebrating the end of summer or trying to inject some bright appeal into the colder months, berries are a great tool to utilize. And I'm not just talking about frozen berries or the out-of-season strawberries you pay big bucks for in the middle of December. When you want the sweet taste of summer berries all year long, there's one reliable way to get it that isn't dependent on the season - of course, I'm talking about berry-flavored alcohol.
