Review: These New Dunkin' Holiday Drinks Aren't Your Standard Seasonal Fare

Even though it might feel like pumpkin spice has only just rejoined us, the truth is that the holiday season is now officially approaching. And as you might suspect, many of your favorite restaurants and cafés are busy updating their offerings to take advantage of this special time of year — including Dunkin'.

This year, the ubiquitous coffee chain and donut purveyor is doing a significant refresh of its winter holiday menu, including adding two brand-new beverages into the mix. Perhaps surprisingly, the inaugural products don't lean too heavily into the peppermint, gingerbread, and other sugar-and-spice-heavy flavors that tend to dominate the colder months. Instead, what you end up drinking would probably feel like a reasonable order during any month.

As a born and bred New Englander with a dyed-in-the-wool appreciation for Dunkin', I was excited when I was assigned to sample these debuting drinks. After picking up the beverages from an everyday Dunkin' location in Manhattan's East Village, I was mostly pleasantly surprised with what I found. Here's what you can expect when you sample these additions to the winter holiday menu.

Now that Halloween is behind us, we've officially entered the earliest days of the holiday season, and Dunkin' is wasting no time getting into it. The coffee chain officially launched its 2025 holiday menu on Nov. 5, 2025 at locations nationwide, which includes two new beverages: the Cookie Butter Cloud Latte and the Berry Sangria Dunkin' Refresher.

According to Dunkin', the Cookie Batter Cloud Latte was actually inspired by a viral menu hack that flooded into locations. The espresso-based drink is served iced, topped with the chain's Cookie Butter Cold Foam and a sprinkle of cookie butter crumbles. Prices on this can vary, but at the location in lower Manhattan where I ordered, the drink started at $5.29 for a small and ran up to $6.09 for a large. According to the app, a medium is 370 calories.

The Berry Sangria Dunkin' Refresher, on the other hand, takes a different holiday flavor approach that they say is inspired by berry-flavored holiday punch. Customers can choose black tea, green tea, or sparkling water for the base of the beverage. In New York City, pricing on this started at $3.75 for a small and went up to $4.35 for a large. The Dunkin' app reports that a medium-sized order is 120 calories. Keep in mind that both drinks are part of the holiday menu and will no longer be available when the season cycles out in a few months.

I feel like I need to start every coffee review I write by admitting that my order is a black cold brew 98% of the time I grab myself one. That's why at first blush, I was worried this baked-good-themed espresso drink would be one of the harder sells on the menu. I placed my order through the Dunkin' app in an attempt to avoid the morning rush, which was truly humming with office-bound workers and class-bound students at this location. Off the bat, I noticed my drink didn't have the cookie butter crumbles sprinkled on top (despite having requested them in the app), but when I asked the very friendly barista, she explained they hadn't received any at their location yet.

I have to admit that even as a bare bones coffee drinker, the drink looked pretty appealing first thing in the morning, with a healthy top layer of cold foam floating above a creamy, caramel colored iced coffee base. Not surprisingly, the rich creaminess hit my palate hard and fast with a milkshake-like richness. But while I picked up plenty of flavors of torched sugar and crispy brown sugar cookies, I was surprised that this didn't taste nearly as offensively sweet as I had expected. In fact, the espresso base actually provided a slightly bitter punch at the finish I wasn't expecting that helped cut through the more decadent textures and flavors.

The colder weather months don't exactly scream juicier beverages to me, but I was willing to suspend my personal expectations for this much lighter seasonal beverage. Even with a few different options, I went with the green tea base for my order (if only because it was the default on the app).

Without all the cream and cold foam, this drink looked downright radiant next to the Cookie Butter Cloud Latte. The instant I took my first sip, I knew the drink lived up to its "Refresher" moniker. To be fair, this tastes absolutely nothing like any sangria I've ever had (including the truly off-the-wall homemade versions I used to attempt at parties in college), but that's not to say it's bad. Uplifting flavors of raspberry, strawberry, and blueberry punch through on the palate with hard candy-like brightness, but without too much sweetness at all. This was a huge relief for me, as I had previously worried this might come across as a cloyingly sweet juice drink.

If I had to compare this to anything else I've had, I'd have to say it's similar to a raspberry iced tea I used to drink decades ago from the now-defunct Fruitopia brand, except a few degrees less sugary. I must've been thirstier when I arrived than I realized, because I ended up drinking about half of my order before I even made it back out onto the street.

After trying this year's brand-new drinks, I have to admit that I'm relatively impressed with the Dunkin' holiday beverages. Part of this is undoubtedly due to the fact that they're not overly reliant on over-the-top seasonal flavors that tend to dominate menus (which, to be fair, is the case with the chain's perennial products, which also just came back to stores). But there's also something to how uniquely enjoyable each of them is that makes them stand out.

Still, I'm not entirely sure the Cookie Butter Cloud Latte is the kind of drink that would get me to break out of my austere black cold brew habits anytime soon, and I certainly don't think that I could finish even half of the medium I ordered. But I have to admit that this was more appealing and easier to drink than I had originally expected, and for that, I have to hand it to Dunkin'. I also wish the Berry Sangria Dunkin' Refresher were available to quench my thirst over the summer (even if I might do a sparkling water base the next time I order it). Ultimately, though, I think the chain is onto to something here.