'Tis The Season: We've Ranked Starbucks' New 2024 Holiday Menu Items Best To Worst

Pumpkin spice latte season seems to start earlier and earlier each year, but for Starbucks and Starbucks Reserve set of holiday drinks and treats, it has to wait until all the Halloween costumes have been put away before they can start to spread its cheer. In 2024, Starbucks and Starbucks Reserve are bringing back old favorites like its Peppermint Mocha beverage, Sugar Plum Cheese Danish, and Chocolate Hazelnut Swirl Cake, but also adding a slew of new items to the line-up. Newbie drinks include Cran-Merry Orange Refresher, and over at Starbucks Reserve, a Fog Nog Tea Latte, Eggnog Espresso Martini, and Iced Caramel Brulée Eggnog Latte. There's also plenty to gobble up, pre-Thanksgiving, and well into the gift buying season, with a Turkey Sage Danish, Dark Toffee Bundt, and Snowman Cake Pop at Starbucks, and Pistachio Raspberry Tart and Coffee Eggnog Holiday Cookie over at the Reserve.

That's a lot of holiday gifts to unwrap in one sitting. So which of these beverages and vittles are truly prized-possession, and which ones, are perhaps, lump of coals? I channeled the holiday spirit to find out, taste tested them all, and then ranked them based on their greatness, and not-so-greatness. Now you'll have one less thing to stress about this season, when you're up to your knees in cooking, or crossing off all the presents on your shopping list. Remember, it's important to eat, drink, and always be merry.

While some Starbucks fans have concocted their own secret menu version of a Fog Nog Latte, Starbucks Reserve is now saving everyone the trouble by making an official one for all to order. Its Fog Nog Tea Latte is a holiday twist on a London Fog. Here, Earl Grey tea hosts white chocolate mocha and liquid cane sugar, and is topped with eggnog cream and a dusting of nutmeg.

That sounds like quite the recipe for a winning drink, but this beverage somehow muted all those fun flavors to make more of a blasé bog. The foam at the top was lovely, but once the mouth got past it and the tea came into play, it just tasted like Earl Grey tea. Perhaps peppermint tea would have been a better bag to let steep in this drink, and have its thin string wrapped around a candy cane to really deck its halls. The beverage has 290 calories, 15 grams of fat, 45 grams of cholesterol, 105 milligrams of sodium, 36 grams of carbs, 36 grams of sugar, 4 grams of protein, and 40 milligrams of caffeine.

The Dark Toffee Bundt, with its grooved cruller donut-like lines, looks like a pastry constantly in motion. Its glaze glistens in the light, and its exterior is further decked out with red ornament and green tree sprinkles of holiday cheer. While it looked like a nifty gift, perfectly wrapped for the season, it ended up being the least memorable food item from the offerings.

Don't get me wrong, this bundt is totally fine as a piece of cake. It has a nice fresh and buttery taste to it, which leans on ingredients like date paste, brown sugar, and vanilla extract. It was a little disappointing that it seemed to be missing the promised "toffee" found in its name. Also, the cake is almost too dense to tackle beyond a few bites. Perhaps if you're looking for wintery alternative to banana bread, this is for you, otherwise you can regift it to someone else.

The bundt cake nets 330 calories, 15 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, .5 grams of trans fat, 80 milligrams of cholesterol, 240 milligrams of sodium, 46 grams of total carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 29 grams of sugar, 18 grams of added sugar, and 4 grams of protein. It retails for $3.95 to $4.95.

For early risers, bacon, breakfast sausages, and a plethora of other pork products are usually the only options available at fast food and fast casual chains across America. Underserved and under-loved are turkey-based meat options, for those who don't or cannot dig on swine. It was lovely to hear Starbucks was offering up a new toasted breakfast item, featuring turkey sausage, that will be available all day long — the Turkey Sage Danish.

The word "danish" makes one seem to think this will be a sweet treat, but it's actually a rather savory breaded one, in the shape of a parallelogram. In addition to containing little bits of turkey sausage, under the hood is a mild béchamel sauce, butter, sea salt, onion powder, and iotas of bell pepper, eggs, Parmesan cheese, and parsley. While this item it's a solid nibble, I wish the ratio of breading to filling leaned more on the latter than the former. Still, it goes down easy, and I'm ready to easily down about three more.

The Danish nets 270 calories, 13 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol, 480 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of sodium, 5 grams of sugar, 3 grams of added sugar, and 8 grams of protein. It retails for $4.65 to $5.45.

Angie "Bakerella" Dudley made cake pops a thing in 2007, and three years later, Starbucks joined the party by peddling its own version made by Steven Charles. Ever since, customers have had a ball with these rounded cake pops, which have also taken on the shapes of animals like a bumblebee and a raccoon. For 2024, Starbucks is hoping customers will warm up to a frosty looking Snowman Cake Pop. This actually isn't the first time it built one of these, as 2019 also some one outfitted with coal eyes and mouth, and a carroted nose.

This new iteration of the Snowman Cake Pop includes the addition of a tar-heel blue set of earmuffs. He's a goofy looking fellow, but once you breach his surface, the actual treat reveals itself to be the same old, same old. That "same old" is its standard deliciously dense cake, surrounded by smoothly sweet icing encasing. For those looking for a safe and surefire winner, this cake pop is an easy reach.

This pop nets 170 calories, 9 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 120 milligrams of sodium, 22 grams of total carbohydrates, 16 grams of sugar, 15 grams of added sugar, and 2 grams of sodium. It retails for $3.25 to $4.25.

As the late fall and early winter sunsets come calling earlier in the evenings, we reach a point where the need for caffeinated drinks, and perhaps ones to wind down with intersect. One drink that sort of bridges the gap is an espresso martini, which isn't exactly good for you, no matter how easy they go down. Starbucks Reserve's holiday, or should that be holing version features Zacapa No. 23 Rum, cream, vanilla syrup, eggnog, finished off with cold foam and a dusting of nutmeg.

While one may expect an actual martini glass to hold this libation, instead it was poured into a coupe cocktail glass. For such a small-statured drink, it surprisingly lasted long, thanks to being a slow-sipper. The bumpy-textured foam was frothy, and the rest of the drink had a nice body to it. While this Espresso Martini smelled boozy, the actual alcohol blended in well, allowing the other sweeter elements to shine. Also, if you're not exactly ready to take the plunge on this one, you can order a martini flight, which includes mini versions of the Starbucks Reserve Espresso Martini, Peppermint Mocha Espresso Martini, and this new Eggnog Espresso Martini.

Who doesn't love a product with a good pun, especially when it's fun to say. But what if said product was also refreshing? Starbucks' new set of Cran-Merry drinks cover all those above bases, and come in a trio of flavor varions. They also just happen to be the company's first ever holiday Refreshers.

The one that is simply called the Cran-Merry Drink is a pile of ice, cooling down a cranberry orange base, cranberry juice concentrate, blood orange juice concentrate, coconut milk, and adding a free freeze dried cranberries for good measure. The coconut milk shifted the attention away from its fruitiness, but remained oddly refreshing. The better options are the Orange Refresher and its close cousin, the Lemonade one, and have a similar ingredient make-up, minus the cream. The orange one tasted like a comely sweet fruity punch, which made it go down rather quickly. The lemonade was kind of the antithesis of the orange one, replacing the sweetness with a nice puckery sourness.

The three drinks range in nutritional value, with the highest totals for a 16-ounce Grande being 140 calories, 2.5 grams of fat, 60 milligrams of sodium, 35 grams of total carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 31 grams of sugar, 28 grams of added sugar, with all three with 55 grams of caffeine. The Cran-Merry Orange Refresher retails for $5.25-$5.95, and the Cran-Merry Drink and Cran-Merry Orange Lemonade Refresher at $5.75 to $6.45.

Desserts are a big part of any holiday meal. Another important aspect at this time of the year is ornamentation. Combine the two and you have something that's not only a feast for the mouth, but also one for the eyes. Starbucks Reserve's Pistachio Raspberry Tart is dolled up to look like a wreath, but to me, it just looked like a deep purple dome surrounded by a circular forest of cacti. The ornateness of this treat made it almost too pretty to even touch.

Once I did get my hands on this tart, it had a mighty heft to it, stemming from its firm, yet flaky vanilla shell. Those "cacti" were a whipped-smart pistachio white chocolate ganache, and the "dome," a piquant raspberry gelée center. The tart's underbelly is filled with similar flavored delights, where raspberry jam and pistachio frangipane play nicely together, juxtaposing sweetness and an earthy nuttiness. This one turned out to be sneaky big, and perhaps best cut into fours, and shared with three dear friends or loved ones who also have a sweet tooth.

If you were a set decorator on a Hallmark Christmas movie, might I suggest displaying a pile of Starbucks Reserve Coffee Eggnog Holiday Cookies on the main character's table, as they are beyond ready for their close-up. On the surface, they have a very elemental design, but a sense of cozy comfort exudes in that simplicity. Two tan cookies form a sandwich, and on the very top, the cutout outline of a Christmas tree is filled in with red and white pearly sprinkles. Like with the Pistachio Raspberry Tart, it's so beautiful you almost don't want to disturb its design with your mouth.

My mind thought the cookies were going to be gingerbread in nature, but was happily surprised when they turned out to be a pair of thickly soft and crumbly spiced cookies. The real fun with this cookie begins once my taste buds encountered the glue that kept the cookies together — a white chocolate ganache. It's buttery, velvety, and instantly will make any mouth fall in love with it. That love actually grew on further bites, when the infused eggnog and coffee flavoring kicked it. Note sure I had even had a cookie that tasted quite like this, and am already having the post-holiday blues when it disappears from stores.

While there are plenty of holiday treats and drinks to nosh and wash down this season, the one above all to seek out is the Iced Caramel Brulée Eggnog Latte, sadly, only available at Starbucks Reserve. This tall drink of awesomeness begins with Starbucks Reserve Espresso, and tosses in eggnog, milk and caramel brûlée sauce poured over ice. The real kicker is what's going on at the top — a cold foam that is mostly coated in a hand-torched caramelized sugar crust. If you've ever finished a meal with the highly-accented and decadent dessert crème brûlée, you'll have a clear idea of how this magical drink works.

At first, I didn't even bother to crack the caramelized sugar crust, and let my tongue and teeth have a fun go with it. Eventually, I employed the spoon, which helped to break it up into pieces, and keep its crunchy goodness around a lot longer. The caramel brûlée sauce was the signature flavor of this drink, and had the perfect level of sweetness, making each sip, from the first to the last, a thing of pure holiday joy. The drink has 560 calories, 21 grams of fat, 140 grams of cholesterol, 370 milligrams of sodium, 80 grams of carbs, 68 grams of sugar, 11 grams of protein, and 125 milligrams of caffeine.

At a Starbucks Reserve in New York City, with no advance knowledge of what I was about to try, I was presented with a taste testing preview of 6 drinks and 5 food items to sample. They were a mix of Starbucks and Starbucks Reserve menu items for the upcoming holiday menu that drops on November 7. Since the three Cran-Merry drinks were similar in nature, they were lumped together as a single item to be ranked. While a Penguin Cookie is also hitting the menu at this time, it was not included in this taste test.

The food and drink were tasted and sipped in the order they were presented. Subsequent tastings and sips followed, and their true order of greatness was sealed by which ones kept having me come back for more over which ones didn't. Other attributes that helped to form the final rankings included uniqueness, overall deliciousness, and its sense of adding merriness to the upcoming holiday season.