The Popular Fall Drink Anthony Bourdain Couldn't Stand

Anthony Bourdain: A trusted pioneer in all things food, whether advising us to always follow the grandma rule, warning of the bathroom-bound aftermath of Nashville's extra-hot chicken, or sharing his unreserved feelings on fleeting food microtrends. Among the more famous trends he disliked is a beloved seasonal fixture — the pumpkin spice latte. This autumn-inspired drink, flavored with festive spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice, is best enjoyed topped with a generous swirl of whipped cream. One of the many flavored lattes popularized by Starbucks, the pumpkin spice option has remained the company's most successful seasonal beverage since its debut in 2003. So why did Bourdain once declare in a Reddit thread that he "would like to see the pumpkin spice craze drowned in its own blood?"

Bourdain's distaste for the pumpkin spice latte wasn't really about the taste of the drink, but rather what it represented. Bourdain has little patience for food trends, especially when they explode into cultural phenomena. In the same Reddit thread where he railed against pumpkin spice, he mocked juice cleanses, noting, "I don't understand the juice cleanse. I mean, if you've ever had a colonoscopy, the doctor gives you something that will cleanse you right quick." During a video for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, he also poked at trends that he believed disrespected perfectly good ingredients for the sake of novelty, calling the Kobe slider "the very epicentre of douchedom."

This isn't to say Bourdain dismissed every food trend, and he could appreciate when he thought a food genuinely deserved its moment in the spotlight, believing Filipino food should be the next trend to captivate foodies. But for the pumpkin spice latte, it appears that to Bourdain, no amount of cinnamon, nutmeg, or whipped cream could justify the frenzy.

Anthony Bourdain had little patience for drinks that he saw as overly pretentious or novel for the sake of novelty. In a 2016 interview with Bon Appétite, when describing his taste in coffee, he said, "There are few things I care about less than coffee ... I don't want some man-bun, Mumford and Son motherf***er to get it for me. I like good coffee, but I don't want to wait for it ... It's a beverage; it's not a lifestyle." It's safe to say that Bourdain was taking a swipe at 2016 hipster culture when artisanal coffee bars (another word he loathed) began popping up everywhere. 

Fittingly, another drink born of the same era earned one of his sharpest critiques. The Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino, a galaxy, color-changing, and sparkly tie-in to the unicorn food social media trend, was described by Bourdain as the "perfect nexus of awfulness," adding that pumpkin spice was the only thing that could make it worse (per Town & Country). So it seems that mid-2010s drink culture —and Starbucks, in particular — didn't stand a chance in Bourdain's book.

Standing in stark contrast was Bourdain's favorite cocktail, the Negroni. Interestingly, he actually disliked the three main liquors that made up this classic aperitif: gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth. In an interview with Barron's, he admitted that he wasn't a fan of the liquors on their own, but when they're stirred together and paired with an orange peel, the result is nothing short of delicious.