Will Starbucks Let You Buy Bottles Of Its Pumpkin Spice Latte Syrup?

"Often imitated, never duplicated" sums up Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice latte, and it's that dang Pumpkin Spice sauce (Starbucks refers to it as sauce rather than a syrup) the global coffee chain uses in several of its beloved seasonal beverages that deserves all the credit. When added to the latte, the beverage is really unlike any other on the market — even compared to Starbucks' current rival chain, Tim Horton's — striking the perfect balance between sweet, rich, creamy, and just the right amount of warming spices.

If you are a fan of what it brings to your cup, you may have wondered if you can just buy a bottle of sauce to enjoy wherever and whenever the time calls for a few pumps of its goodness. Unfortunately, it's not for sale. You can't ask a barista to charge you for a cup's worth of sauce, and don't even think of pleading with your friend who's a Starbucks barista to sneak you a bottle, as it could jeopardize their job. That's right — Starbucks Partners (employees) say they can face termination if caught supplying others, or themselves, with bottles of Pumpkin Spice sauce.

There are a few reasons why bottles of pumpkin spice sauce are off-limits, according to Starbucks Partners on Reddit. One of the most commonly stated is that seasonal flavors come in a finite supply — and God forbid if any customer is denied Pumpkin Spice sauce in their beverage because all the bottles had been snatched up by PSL fans. Fall would be canceled.

As a comment on a Reddit post noted, the reason why the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice sauce stays within company confines is thatStarbucks does not allow the retail sale of its sauces. This includes the Pumpkin Spice sauce, along with other sauces such as mocha and white mocha. On the other hand, certain flavors of Starbucks' syrups with a barcode can be sold at Starbucks stores, depending on inventory; these include vanilla, sugar-free vanilla, cinnamon dolce, hazelnut, and classic syrup.

At the end of the day, although Starbucks is a multi-billion-dollar corporate entity, it's still a business, which means it lives on the strength of its sales. The fall-to-winter season is historically one of Starbucks' most profitable times, driven by the scarcity of its traditional holiday beverages and the number of customers eager to enjoy them. Starbucks sells approximately 20 million Pumpkin Spice lattes every year, and if even half that number owned a bottle of the syrup to recreate the lattes themselves, the demand for Starbucks' PSL could decrease, and in turn, so could Starbucks' sales.

Luckily, there's still hope for meeting all your Starbucks PSL needs for the long fall and winter months ahead, especially when you can't make it to a Starbucks store. About a bajillion recipes exist online for "Copycat Starbucks Pumpkin Spice syrup." And if you want to stay as close to the source as possible, Starbucks itself actually shares a recipe on its blog for a homemade pumpkin spice syrup. Its version combines sugar, brown sugar, water, vanilla extract, pumpkin pie spice, and pumpkin purée.