Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always struggled with walking into Dunkin’ Donuts. It’s not that I’m drunk and end up stumbling into glass doors or anything like that, but rather, it’s the unfortunate predisposition I have to being both very, very indecisive, as well as having insatiable cravings for the kinds of things that keep dentists working overtime and that old guy on a horse talking about diabetes.

Never mind the fact that Dunkin’ Donuts presents me with a sugary catalogue filled with fried dough in all shapes and sizes, but I oftentimes find myself in a Dunkin’ that shares their space with the 31 flavors of Baskin-Robbins.

What starts out as a late afternoon coffee pick-me-up can easily turn into three scoops of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, followed by the inevitable and actual physical struggle of walking out of Dunkin’ Donuts thanks to a sugar high not seen since that fat kid in Matilda ate that whole chocolate cake.

The way I see it, the new Baskin-Robbins-inspired iced coffee flavors from Dunkin’ are, or at least should be, the ideal way to kill two birds with one stone and get both my coffee kick and ice cream sugar fix (as for working donut ingestion into that mix, I leave that up to Baskin-Robbins’ R&D).

Since I recently returned from a business trip in which I experienced the full brunt of that sweet southern concoction of nuts, butter, cream, and sugar known as pralines, I felt like the Old Fashioned Butter Pecan Iced Coffee was calling my name. And because I stress the utmost in scientific and accurate reporting on all things tooth decaying and artery clogging, I made sure to grab a cone of Baskin-Robbins’ Old Fashioned Butter Pecan Ice Cream at the same time.

The Old Fashioned Butter Pecan Iced Coffee didn’t taste exactly like the ice cream flavor that shares its name, but the former is still very good. Because I wish for my iced coffee to have the rich taste of actual milk fat and not just the watery and dull taste of lactic acid, I chose to have my iced coffee with cream instead of skim milk. I highly suggest this.

The syrup itself is plenty sweet, but not cloying in the way you’d expect from the stuff that gives snow cones their flavor. It’s actually remarkably balanced when taken with the rest of the beverage, with a roasted pecan flavor that’s only heightened by the mellow and smooth Dunkin’ coffee. There’s also a depth of sweetness that tastes like brown sugar or maple syrup.

Taking turns sipping from my iced coffee and licking my Butter Pecan Ice Cream cone, I found both products enjoyable, if moderately different in flavor. The iced coffee focused the pecan flavor more in terms of what I would call a “creamery fresh” sensation with a sophisticated roasted vibe, while the ice cream drew most of its flavor from the buttery and oily flavors of the big ass pecan sticking out of the cone.

I didn’t find Dunkin’ Donuts’ take on sister chain Baskin-Robbins’ Old Fashioned Butter Pecan Ice Cream to be an exact replication, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a bold and interesting new take in the overcrowded fast food iced coffee market which screams for flavors beyond vanilla, hazelnut, and caramel. The roasted and full-flavored coffee notes, as well as the brown sugar, give the Old Fashioned Butter Pecan Iced Coffee a kind of pralines and cream flavor that’s in some ways preferable to the “Old Fashioned” Butter Pecan flavor of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream, and much more lively than the par-for-the-course shot of vanilla-flavored syrup.

(Nutrition Facts – small – 140 calories, 50 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 115 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 17 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, and 6% calcium.)

Item: Dunkin’ Donuts Old Fashioned Butter Pecan Iced Coffee
Purchased Price: $1.69
Size: Small
Purchased at: Dunkin’ Donuts
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Much better than standard iced coffee syrup. Tastes like butter pecan. Creamery fresh taste has roasted pecan flavor thanks to the smoky notes of coffee. Pralines ‘n Cream thing going on. Killing two birds with one stone. Dunking ice cream in coffee gives new meaning to the ‘Dunkin’ in Dunkin Donuts.
Cons: Doesn’t have actual pecans in it. Butter flavor could use some work. Finding a way to work donuts into the equation

Well, it’s about time!

How refreshing to find somebody taking a stab at an Irish creme-flavored somethin’-or-other for St. Patty’s Day. Green food coloring? Snooze. Artificial mint extract? Been there, clogged that artery.

But whiskey, creme, and cocoa, all wrapped up in a pillow of cakey dough? Now that’s a breakfast of bold hooligans. Bold hooligans like you and me, so, with the blood of my Irish ancestors pulsing through my wee little veins, I dodged my regular glazed cake and nabbed this fella.

Yes, indeedy, that is my vessel of morning justice. Oval-esque and a bit wonky, it reminds me of Gilly, the pet rock I had as a child. Fortunately, unlike a pet rock, this is edible, coated in sugar, and won’t get lost in a tragic river rafting accident.

Now, to dive in…

The cake, which was fresh from the fryer, is puffy enough, if a little dry and tasteless, but I’m accustomed to that in a Dunkin’ do[ugh]nut. Now, to counteract that, there resides plenty of this beige, Irish-creme-like palm oil goo, which fills about 1/3 of the cake’s interior, but, like the mutagen that created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, this goo can be used for creation…or destruction.

They say love blinds a person. If that’s true, someone loves sweetness in the Dunkin’ Donuts testing facilities because, holy bag of potatoes, Batman, the creme’s definitely sweet, which is a good thing in that it adds some sense of flavor, but I fear it also might make my great grandmother rise from her Irish grave and knock me right in the cake-hole fer consumin’ a product that defies all them laws of what Irish creme should be!

“But grandma!” I’d say, “This particular interpretation of Irish creme focuses on the beverage’s sharp condensed milk flavor!” She would then argue that there’s very little dimension to counteract that flavor, like cocoa or espresso or whiskey. On this, she would be right: where’s the whiskey? I demand whiskey in my palm oil!

However, if I put my expectations of Irish creme authenticity aside, the filling tastes okay. Like vanilla pudding and Cool Whip mixed with a hint of coffee medicine from some sort of Kahlúa flavoring. It wants to be bitter, but just can’t help but stick to its sugary ways. A little dip in the chocolate frosting might’ve added some contrast to help this guy stand up to its fellow pudgy rounds.

I really wanted to find myself scrounging for crumbs here, but, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t finish the whole thing. Alas, this one has fallen victim to one-dimension-ness.

“Et tu, Brute?”

(A little ode to the Ides of March there)

Oh, if only it were simple to create a mass-marketed success. Innovators cast the dice, but they can never be absolutely sure about how a product will fall, and this one fell off its rocker somewhere. Is it terrible? Nope. Will I buy it again? Ehhh… I’d rather have a Girl Scout cookie.

However, while not great, I would be sad if the Irish Creme offering left forever to be replaced by some Smo-Joe green-glazed doughnut. It gets props for innovation, and, at the same time, it could use some help in the flavor department. Don’t give up on it, important people at Dunkin’. With a quick dip in a vat of glaze or a reformulation of the filling, this doughnut has potential.

(Nutrition Facts – 260 calories, 135 calories from fat, 15 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 350 milligrams of sodium, 0 milligrams of potassium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 10 grams of sugars, and 3 grams of protein.)

Item: Dunkin’ Donuts Irish Creme Donut
Purchased Price: $1.00
Size: N/A
Purchased at: Dunkin’ Donuts
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Sweet. Pudding-like filling. Plenty of filling. Cake is puffy. Not nasty. Innovative. Irish ancestors. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Gilly, my pet rock.
Cons: Too sweet at times. Bland cake. Dry cake. Wimpy powdered sugar dust. Gets boring. Absence of whiskey. The fact that “not nasty” is in the pros. The Ides of March. Being haunted by my great grandmother.

Dunkin’ Donuts has a new Turkey Sausage Breakfast Sandwich, but it’s available only to those who live in New England or in the Mid-Atlantic United States.

If you’re like me and don’t know which states those are because in school you were more focused on knowing state capitals than where states were on a map, here you go: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, and West Virginia.

The new breakfast sandwich consists of a fried egg sprinkled with pepper, a turkey sausage patty, and a slice of reduced fat cheddar cheese on a toasted English Muffin.

Dunkin’ Donuts’ Turkey Sausage Breakfast Sandwich is under 400 calories and available for a limited time in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington D.C.

If you’ve tried it, let us know what you think of it in the comments.

Source: PR Newswire

Fall is my favorite season. What’s not to love? The air turns cool but isn’t freezing yet; the leaves change colors and make great crunchy noises as you tramp through them; Halloween and Thanksgiving are just around the corner; college football starts and so do the baseball playoffs. (Okay, probably not for my team this year, but shut up.) And alongside all that, pumpkins begin their annual 2 1/2 months of relevance. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin donuts, pumpkin ale… it’s all terrific. And this year, I got really excited when I heard that Dunkin’ Donuts was releasing pumpkin coffee for use with Keurigs.

In case anyone is as clueless as I was until recently, a Keurig is a type of coffee maker that brews java quickly. You load it with small containers called K-Cups and through dark sorcery (allegedly), it spits out a cup of coffee a minute later. I got one for my wife for our last anniversary, and I’m convinced it’s her favorite thing I’ve ever bought her. Mind you, I have at various times given her an engagement ring, a Coach purse, diamond earrings, and two children. Pretty sure this still tops the list.

What’s surprising is just how much I was looking forward to DD’s pumpkin coffee, since I usually find coffee disgusting, or at best acceptable with loads of milk and sugar. But… pumpkin! Pumpkin makes it all better, right? That’s the operating theory, anyway: pumpkin and the spices, which sounds like either a Motown group or a Saturday morning cartoon. Don’t pretend you wouldn’t watch it.

I don’t want to spend too much time on the packaging, but it’s both eye-catching and visually appealing. The multicolored leaf pattern and orange and brown hues draw attention without overwhelming you, and I like that there’s only one picture of a pumpkin on the entire box. There’s no need to overload you with PUMPKIN! After all, pumpkin sells itself.

After spending 30 seconds to brew a cup, I took a whiff and was pleased with the results. What you’re going to smell is mostly nutmeg with just a little bit of cinnamon. (Those seem to be the only spices included; they’re the only ones mentioned on the back of the box, anyway.) Beyond that it’s the usual coffee smell. Apparently this is Arabica coffee and I’m sure that means something to some of you, who are no doubt rolling your eyes right now at this idiot java novice, but to me it just smells like coffee. Still, that’s not a bad thing — coffee always smells better than it tastes.

…which, unfortunately, remains the case. Maybe it’s my fault: it’s pumpkin coffee, not pumpkin pie coffee. It isn’t magic. Nor is it bad, really — again, I’m not a coffee guy, but with milk and sugar it’s stupendously tolerable. You can’t fault coffee for being, you know… coffee. But what I CAN fault it for, and will, is not having nearly enough pumpkin in there. It’s pumpkin coffee, so you should be able to taste at least a little hint of pumpkin, right?

Apparently not, because what you’re drinking is nutmeg & cinnamon coffee. Those are good spices, yes, and they combine for a pleasant aftertaste. As a result, it’s hard to be too disappointed because, after all: it tastes good, with rich flavor and a sweet taste that lingers after the sip. By coffee standards, anyway. But it’s a bit like biting down into a bacon cheeseburger and only tasting the burger and cheese. You *like* cheeseburger, so technically that’s okay, but… where’s my bacon, dammit? The wife tells me in most flavored coffees, it just smells like whatever the flavor is and your nose kind of fills in the taste. I guess I can buy that, but since I can taste the spices, shouldn’t I be able to taste the pumpkin?

I think that’s my final word on DD’s latest seasonal offer. Nice aroma, looks appealing, enjoyable taste as far as it goes. But if they decide to bring it back next year, I hope they consider upping the pumpkin content, or they might as well just call this “fall blend” instead of “pumpkin coffee.” For those of you who elect to try some, I don’t think you’ll regret buying it. But still — where’s my bacon?!

(Nutrition Facts – N/A. I know strange, right?)

Item: Dunkin’ Donuts Pumpkin Coffee K-Cup Pack
Purchased Price: $11.99
Size: 14 K-Cups
Purchased at: Dunkin’ Donuts
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Fall is basically the best season. Has a nice, rich aroma. Package is one scarecrow away from the perfect autumn image. (Mostly) nutmeg and (some) cinnamon make for a very pleasing aftertaste. Buying your wife the perfect gift. Works out to less than $1 a cup, which is pretty good. Man, if they did pumpkin mocha, how awesome would that be?
Cons: Surprising lack of pumpkin, considering the name. Does flavored coffee really not usually taste like that flavor? That’s stupid. Spices can’t totally mask the fact that deep down, it still tastes like coffee.

So I’ve had cookies on my mind lately. 

It started when I volunteered to review Dunkin’ Donuts’ latest summer creation, the Oreo Vanilla Bean Coolatta, which I’ve had at least four of in recent weeks.  Then we brought Chips Ahoy! to my family reunion, always a massive affair thanks to my great-grandparents being really great at procreating.  Finally, my wife had me watch Cookie Monster’s cover of “Call Me Maybe” because one of her old sorority sisters is a background dancer in it.  Now every day I find myself humming, “Hey, me just met you, and this is crazy / But you got cookie, so share it maybe?”  (On the plus side, he harmonizes better than Carly Rae Jepsen.)

As you might surmise from my multiple trips to the well, there are a lot of good things to say about the Oreo Coolatta.  It’s always nice when I’m able to review something I was planning to try anyway, and this for sure qualifies.  Non-coffee drinkers sometimes struggle to find something at DD to wash down a nice chocolate glazed, and the vanilla bean Coolatta was the answer to my prayers, so long as I don’t mind having the shakes for the rest of the day.  Which I don’t.  Still, I’ve always believed variety is the spice of life, as long as it’s an incredibly minor modification of something you already know you like.  And I was pretty sure this would essentially be just a Vanilla Bean Coolatta with Oreo pieces mixed into it.

Which, as it turns out, is pretty much what it is.  There are two new Coolatta varieties, Oreo Coffee Coolatta and Oreo Vanilla Bean Coolatta.  I didn’t try the coffee variety, though one might infer that it would taste a bit like a mochaccino with a different, grittier kind of chocolate.  But if you’ve ever had a standard Vanilla Bean Coolatta before, you have a pretty good idea what to expect, which is to say: pure awesomeness.  They have (at least at the beginning) a great consistency, not too thick to slurp through the straw, but not so liquid-y that it’s like drinking a soda.  Except in terms of sweetness, because damn.  I know I joked about it earlier, but seriously, you need a hearty sweet tooth to enjoy this beverage.  People content with an apple as their main sweet for the day need not apply.

So with the excellent Vanilla Bean Coolatta as its base, it was just a matter of making sure the addition of Oreo didn’t throw things out of whack, right?  Potential problems might’ve included the Oreo pieces being too large to comfortably fit through the straw, leading to blockages or making the overall consistency too thick.  But that wasn’t an issue — the Oreo bits, while easily visible, are small enough that the overall consistency remains the same.

The texture, however, is a bit grittier, as you’d expect.  And the taste is understandably similar, though not identical.  Still extremely sweet, but with that highly distinctive chocolate flavor that I’m struggling to describe other than “tastes like an Oreo.”  It’s not quite as rich as an actual Oreo cookie, but it still makes the Coolatta a bit more nuanced than the regular Vanilla Bean variety.  It also creates a distinct aftertaste, leaving you tasting the chocolate well after the vanilla bean has faded from your tongue.

I should clarify that I can’t say for a fact that this is just the standard Vanilla Bean Coolatta with Oreo bits in it.  Oreos obviously have a creme filling too, and it’s possible DD has added a little of that creme to the vanilla base.  I honestly can’t swear to it one way or the other, but if they have, it’s fairly subtle.  Which should not in any way dissuade you from trying what has turned out to be one of this summer’s best treats.  The price is a bit steep and it goes without saying you’re not allowed to drink one without an insulin IV, but you can’t quibble with the taste.  Om nom nom!

(Nutrition Facts — 1 small Coolatta — 420 calories, 80 calories from fat, 9 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 230 milligrams of sodium, 88 grams of carbohydrates, 75 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fiber, and 3 grams of protein.)

Item: Dunkin’ Donuts Oreo Vanilla Bean Coolatta
Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 16 fl. oz.
Purchased at: Dunkin’ Donuts
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Doesn’t taste like coffee.  Oreo bits are just the right size.  Chocolate is a nice addition but doesn’t overwhelm the beverage.  Very minor variety.  Let’s get skim milk flowing, we’ll start this snack going, baby.
Cons: A little pricey.  Really, really, just crazy really sweet.  Not nearly as enjoyable when it starts melting.  Family reunions where they order about 8 mushroom pizzas and only one plain, like, WTFingF?

Update: Click here to read our Dunkin’ Donuts Vanilla Bean Coolatta review.

I thought everything that could’ve been Oreo-fied had be Oreo-fied, but Dunkin’ Donuts has shown me how wrong I was by introducing their new Oreo Coffee Coolatta and Oreo Vanilla Bean Coolatta.

The new blended Oreo Coolattas beverages are available for a limited time.

A small (16 ounce) Oreo Coffee Coolatta with cream has 480 calories, 26 grams of fat, 15 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 80 milligrams of cholesterol, 210 milligrams of sodium, 64 grams of carbohydrates, 49 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fiber, and 4 grams of protein. If you think the fat totals are a bit too high, you can make it better for you by swapping the cream with milk or skim milk.

A small Oreo Vanilla Bean Coolatta has 420 calories, 9 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 230 milligrams of sodium, 88 grams of carbohydrates, 75 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fiber, and 3 grams of protein. If you think the sugar total is a bit too high, you can make it better for you by pouring half of the frozen beverage on the ground.

Dunkin’ Donuts also has new Oreo donuts, but I’m too Oreo-ed out to explain them.

(Thanks to TIB reader Christopher for the heads up!)