When Is Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Making Its 2024 Comeback?

We're approaching the end of July, which means, you guessed it: Pumpkin spice season is about to start. As soon as that stuff hits the market, you can expect me to start getting grumpy, because I can already see brands trying to usher out summer, my favorite season, so that they can flood our shelves with cinnamon and nutmeg-scented goods. 

Starbucks is arguably the brand most responsible for our cultural obsession with pumpkin spice flavors. I'm going to play "Pumpkin Spice Pundit" today, since I'm the longest-running battle-scarred staff member at The Takeout, and try to figure out when Starbucks will drop its pumpkin spice menu in 2024.

There are a few things to take into consideration. Last year, Starbucks celebrated the 20th anniversary of its Pumpkin Spice Latte and released the beverage to the masses on Thursday, August 24. That put its emergence during the second-to-last week of August. When it comes to seasonal trends, however, brands shamelessly tend to start inching up the release of their fall goods to get ahead of their competition, a phenomenon called "pumpkin creep," so that very well may be a factor this year.

In 2022, Starbucks released its Pumpkin Spice Latte on Tuesday, August 30, which made last year's drop about a week earlier than its predecessor, demonstrating that pumpkin creep is real. I think the pumpkin creep trend will continue and Starbucks will release its pumpkin spice menu on Thursday, August 22 this year.

August 22 puts the release date on the Thursday of the second-to-last week of August, which tracks with last year's release date without pushing it up to look like a blatant money grab. As a bonus, Starbucks gets two days of natural pumpkin creep thanks to the way the calendar year is laid out. I'm not alone in my prediction; August 22 seems to be the most popular choice for pumpkin prognosticators on TikTok, for what that's worth (probably not much).

Again, this is all educated speculation, so I could be off by a few days, or even a week or two. After all, a friend of mine reported seeing Christmas goods on display at Costco already, which frankly makes me feel absolutely filthy. For all I know, Starbucks could release the thing at the beginning of August and I still don't think anyone would be particularly surprised, though I would feel personally insulted somehow.

We'll have to wait until then to see, but for now, I'll happily wear my shorts, grab my plain iced coffee without being assaulted with the perfume of fall in the coffee shop, and enjoy the warm weather while it lasts.