Dunkin' Winter Drink Menu Review: Fruity Refreshers And Protein Milk Shine

Dunkin' typically introduces lineups of new beverages to its menu on a seasonal basis. In The Takeout's review of the Dunkin' 2025 summer menu, a selection of three breakfast foods and four drinks earned mostly positive marks. Just after the start of the new year, on January 7, Dunkin' debuted a selection of drinks on its winter 2026 menu largely revolving around Protein Milk, a brand-new addition to Dunkin' stores. Simply put, Gen Z loves protein — cottage cheese had a glow-up in 2023, for example, largely on the strength of its high protein content. While that may have been years prior, protein drinks are still very much on-trend as of winter 2026. In one medium Dunkin' drink with Protein Milk, you'll find 15 grams of protein.

I picked eight winter 2026 drink menu additions from my nearest Dunkin' in the suburbs of Las Vegas and tried all of them in succession. For clarity's sake, Dunkin' has debuted some additional drinks, like a simple Protein Milk latte, but these eight constitute the winter menu's featured specialties. The following are individual reviews of each drink based on my personal thoughts, before a final assessment of the winter drinks menu overall.

The star of the Dunkin' winter 2026 menu is Megan's Mango Protein Refresher — Megan in this case referring to "Savage" rapper Megan Thee Stallion. Refreshers, for what it's worth, first became popular at Starbucks. While the Starbucks Refreshers don't have as much caffeine as regular coffee, their fruity flavors offer an alternative for caffeine-craving, coffee-averse customers. The Refresher menu at Dunkin' is built on that same appeal. Megan Thee Stallion's Dunkin' Refresher simply mixes mango Refresher concentrate with the chain's brand-new Protein Milk.

This was the first of the eight drinks I tried, and immediately apparent to me was just how significantly Protein Milk affects the consistency of an iced drink. Protein Milk is thick, and that made my Megan's Mango Protein Refresher fall somewhere between a juice and a smoothie. To me, that thickness was a major plus. Its mango flavor, meanwhile, was bright and fruity, lacking excessive sugar. That tasty mango character and milky consistency fit excellently together. As a classic coffee-drinking Millennial, I'm admittedly a newbie to the world of Refreshers, and Megan's Mango Protein Refresher was good enough to convince me that I've been missing out.

Contrary to its name, the Strawberry Protein Refresher is prepared with not just strawberry but a slightly more complex strawberry dragonfruit Refresher base. That's paired, of course, with the brand new Dunkin' Protein Milk. The non-Protein Milk version of the Strawberry Dragonfruit Refresher is one of the Dunkin' Refresher menu's mainstays, so this new item is a twist on that recent classic.

Experientially, the Strawberry Protein Refresher hits the same main notes as Megan's Mango Protein Refresher, pairing a milky consistency with a bright fruit flavor. But I found the flavor of the strawberry dragonfruit base inferior to the mango one — it didn't taste quite like strawberry or dragonfruit, landing more in a general, artificial fruit territory. That said, I've never had the baseline Strawberry Dragonfruit Refresher, so it's entirely possible fans of that drink will like this one even better, thanks to the Protein Milk upgrade. Personally, I found that this drink was pleasant but altogether unnecessary up against the superiority of Megan's Mango Protein Refresher.

The Caramel Chocolate Protein Latte is the sole hot drink with Protein Milk I ordered from the Dunkin' winter 2026 menu. There is, it's worth noting, an iced version, but I wanted to see how Protein Milk contributed to a hot drink. As its name plainly indicates, the Caramel Chocolate Protein Latte consists of espresso, Protein Milk, caramel, and chocolate.

As it turned out, I found the Protein Milk to be less of an upgrade hot than it was in my iced drinks. That thicker consistency I enjoyed so much was muted — still perceptible but to a significantly lesser degree. Nevertheless, the caramel chocolate latte component was generally solid, tasting like coffee first, caramel second, and chocolate third. As someone who does appreciate boosts of protein here and there, the notion of a solid sweetened coffee with 15 grams of protein is worth something, at least. But I found the Caramel Chocolate Protein Latte ultimately landed in 'good' territory, lacking a killer characteristic that might make it truly shine.

Dunkin' hit on a bunch of major drink trends of 2025 with its winter 2026 menu, covering caffeinated Refreshers, high protein content, and even matcha lattes. While matcha is certainly nothing new, it surged in popularity in 2025. Matcha drinks even landed on the McDonald's menu, albeit only in one lucky country. Its inclusion on the Dunkin' winter menu, then, is hardly surprising. The Almond Iced Protein Matcha Latte simply consists of matcha, almond flavor, and Protein Milk.

While it's entirely possible this was a quirk of how my local Dunkin' prepared the drink, I tasted zero almond in my Almond Iced Protein Matcha Latte. However, its baseline matcha flavor was surprisingly solid, especially for a quick service chain like Dunkin'. I'm not a huge matcha guy, so I still found Megan's Mango Protein Refresher to be the best of my iced protein drinks. But for matcha drinkers, the simple combination of a good quality matcha and that satisfyingly thick, milky consistency may well be enough to make this worth ordering over similar menu items that lack the pizzazz of the Dunkin' Protein Milk.

While simple in composition, the Iced Protein Latte with Sugar-Free Vanilla is the item on the Dunkin' winter 2026 menu best suited for those looking for the most fitness-oriented caffeinated drink possible. That's thanks, of course, to its sugar-free sweetener. Its only other ingredients are espresso and Protein Milk.

Unsurprisingly, I didn't find my Iced Protein Latte with Sugar-Free Vanilla flashy, per se. Nevertheless, I found it to be one of the menu's standouts based on the fact that it's a nutritionally bolstered coffee with a solid flavor. Because there's nothing flashy about it, this isn't the sort of drink that would shine in a blind taste test. But it's the knowledge that it's just about as good for you as a lightly sweet drink from a quick service chain could be that gives the Iced Protein Latte with Sugar-Free Vanilla a special quality, making it worthy of a spot in an everyday coffee order.

The Caramel Chocolate Shakin' Espresso is one of three non-Protein Milk drinks debuting on the Dunkin' winter 2026 menu. In January of 2025, we compared the Dunkin' Brown Sugar Shakin' Espresso to Starbucks', and found that they were virtually identical. So, fans of the Starbucks shaken espresso drinks can expect a similar experience from Dunkin'. In addition to the requisite two shots of espresso over ice, the Caramel Chocolate Shakin' Espresso consists of chocolate flavoring, caramel flavoring, and oat milk.

This turned out to be the sole item on the Dunkin' winter menu that did nothing for me. Rather than a blend of coffee, chocolate, and caramel, I tasted little more than espresso. That flavor wasn't necessarily off-putting, but I'd rather order an espresso-dominant drink from a smaller coffee shop that prepares espresso shots with more elegant flavors. Dunkin' is precisely the sort of coffee spot where the addition of flavors like chocolate and caramel should shine, so their lack of presence in my Caramel Chocolate Shakin' Espresso was a let-down. Altogether, this was the only drink I tried that I outright wouldn't order again.

Cold foam on hot drinks may be one of 14 Starbucks customizations that annoy baristas, but at Dunkin', cold foam comes standard on what the chain calls its Cloud Lattes. On the winter 2026 menu is a Cocoa Cloud Latte, consisting of espresso, caramel chocolate syrup, and milk, topped with chocolate cold foam.

First and foremost, the Cocoa Cloud Latte is pretty. Fortunately, it's not just looks that make this drink worthwhile. That said, its flavor wasn't quite what I expected. Rather than a cloyingly sweet milk chocolate, its chocolate component was a little on the bitterer, darker side — not to invoke Starbucks again, but it does happen to fall into similar territory. Caramel wasn't a flavor I really picked up on, but I don't think a more prominent caramel flavor would have added any value. Altogether, my Cocoa Cloud Latte was a tasty, not-overly-sweet indulgence, with some visual panache that helped set it apart from the pack.

The Berry Moonlight Daydream Refresher is the sole refresher on the Dunkin' winter 2026 menu that lacks Protein Milk. It consists, rather, of a so-called berry sangria Refresher base, oat milk, and a sweet cold foam topping.

The berry flavor in my Berry Moonlight Daydream Refresher was so strong, I thought it tasted like a berry lemonade — while the drink lacks citrus as far as I can tell, it includes such a bold berry flavoring that I found mere berry tartness took on a citrus-adjacent character. To be clear, that faux-berry lemonade flavor was great. I did, however, find the value of the cold foam to be more visual than anything else, perhaps because the strength of the berry flavor overpowered what may have been a subtle sweet cream component. Even if the cold foam was a little unnecessary, it looked nice, adding some flair to what is already a solidly satisfying caffeinated berry drink.

While I didn't necessarily love the Dunkin' winter 2026 menu across the board, the good far outshined the bad. Since there were both Refreshers and coffee drinks I thoroughly enjoyed, it's safe to say that for most kinds of customers who enjoy drinks from Dunkin', there's something new worth trying.

In a general sense, Protein Milk is a home run. My favorite Protein Milk item was Megan's Mango Protein Refresher. That's followed by the Iced Protein Latte with Sugar-Free Vanilla. Outside the protein realm, the Cocoa Cloud Latte and the Berry Moonlight Daydream Refresher were likewise standouts. Falling just below that upper echelon are the Strawberry Protein Refresher, the Caramel Chocolate Protein Latte, and the Almond Iced Protein Matcha Latte — each had its strong suits, complicated by minor flaws. The Caramel Chocolate Shakin' Espresso was the only item I didn't like. Consisting of far more hits than misses, the winter 2026 menu can safely be considered a success for Dunkin'.