Upgrade Your Dunkin' PSL With A Few Pumps Of This Sweet Flavor Swirl

Dunkin' has been unveiling its annual pumpkin spice latte just like every other coffee chain, but the Dunkin' PSL can be polarizing. In an official review here at The Takeout some years back, we found that Starbucks' pumpkin spice latte beat Dunkin's, which tasted a bit too heavily of artificial sweetener. In 2025, some customers have found that Dunkin's pumpkin spice latte tastes different. Some on social media say it has less of a chemical taste, while others argue it's stronger and several claim it's watered down — in any case, there seems to be a growing consensus that it's not the same.

If you're not personally a fan of today's take on the PSL, or if you like pumpkin but tend to avoid the pumpkin spice craze that took over the world, there are off-menu ways you can mess with its flavor. For example, on social media, a popular menu hack is to ask for both pumpkin and mocha in your drink when you order it. You don't even have to order the "pumpkin spice latte" specifically; you can ask for a latte (or an iced latte or iced coffee) with two or three pumps of pumpkin and mocha flavors instead — more pumps of flavored syrup will make it sweeter. Alternatively, instead of a mocha pump, you could also go with hazelnut, caramel, or vanilla alongside the pumpkin.

In a very loose sense, these pump combinations can be considered part of the Dunkin' secret menu. It's hardly an actual secret, but it's useful. One of the big mistakes people make while ordering at Dunkin' is to ignore the simple variations on a drink you can get just by asking. For 2025 in particular, the not-so-secret pumpkin and mocha combination has been highly praised on usual online haunts like Facebook and Reddit. The combination makes some sense: Pumpkin and chocolate make for a very strong, sweet tasting pairing. Pumpkin is sweet and earthy, and the espresso-and-chocolate mixture of mocha is pleasantly sweet and bitter, and none of those notes clash with each other. 

Lastly, to avoid any confusion, if you're like me and you normally order straight off the menu without worrying much about extra flavors, you may not completely know how "pumps" work at these big coffee chains. Behind the counter, Dunkin' has something called flavor swirls, which are sugary syrups with different flavors that the staff uses to flavor your drink. During autumn, seasonal flavor swirls like pumpkin are unveiled, but most of the usual syrups (like mocha, in this case) are available year-round. It's very easy to combine them if you ask for a few pumps of mocha and equal pumps of pumpkin or pumpkin spice.