Sugar, pumpkin spice and everything nice

I will be honest, when it comes to holidays, hot takes, or pretty much anywhere my opinion is needed, I am a hater by nature. Usually, my initial instinct is to squint and judge as if everything personally wronged me. But even I have my exceptions, and pumpkin spice is one of them. The minute the weather dips below gross and sweaty, my inner fall lover wakes up.

I love fall the way people love their pets, so naturally I am pro-pumpkin spice. It is cozy, nostalgic and pretty much the only seasonal trend I refuse to make fun of. Yet every year, the pumpkin-spice haters crawl out of their summer hibernation, acting like their dislike makes them edgy and cool. Apparently rejecting a good pumpkin spice latte, claiming to not like cinnamon and nutmeg, somehow makes them nonchalant and mysterious in a good way. 

News flash, it does not. 

Fall is the best season of the year. Summer drinks taste like melted popsicles pretending to be cocktails. Winter drinks are peppermint trying way too hard to be festive. Fall drinks, on the other hand, are immaculate. 

Pumpkin spice is the warm hug of seasonal beverages: not flashy, not trying to prove anything and just reliably comforting. It is the drink equivalent of rewatching “Gilmore Girls”, where every scene looks like it was filmed at a pumpkin patch. There is no better sweet treat to pair with your annual fall TV lineup, and it is the drink you can sip on while pretending to live in “Stars Hollow”.

Let’s be honest: pumpkin spice fits perfectly into the whole fall fantasy we all secretly love. The cozy sweaters, Uggs, and chilly afternoon walks go hand in hand with the seasonal flavor. It is the drink you reach for before visiting a farmers market you window shop at, or before sitting down to watch cozy shows snuggled in a blanket. Basically, it is the unofficial sponsor of fall trends like decorative leaves, fake pumpkins and everyone's yearly attempt to become soup lovers.

So yes, I may be a hater by nature, but pumpkin spice is where my negativity retires for the season. Personally, I would choose the drink that makes me feel like a character in a rom-com set in a town with an unreasonable number of leaf-covered sidewalks over being cool and mysterious any season.