Your Favorite Starbucks Holiday Drinks, Ranked by How Terrible They Are for You
Huge news for Starbucks fans: The chain’s popular holiday drinks are now back on the menu—and they’re giving out free reusable cups Nov. 7 to celebrate the start of the season.
Starting today, you can grab a Peppermint Mocha, Toasted White Chocolate Mocha, Caramel Brulée Latte, Chestnut Praline Latte, and Eggnog Latte, along with all of your usual favorites. That’s a lot to choose from when you’re looking to sip some holiday cheer.
Obviously, these aren’t health drinks, but we were curious: How much sugar do these treats really pack? Here, we break down the calories of your favorite Starbucks holiday drinks, rank them in terms of nutrition, and offer the healthiest way to enjoy them anyway.
What’s in the Starbucks holiday drinks?
Each drink is a little different, but this is what you can expect for ingredients:
Peppermint Mocha: The Peppermint Mocha features espresso, steamed milk, sweet mocha sauce, and peppermint-flavored syrup. It’s all topped with whipped cream and dark chocolate curls.
Toasted White Chocolate Mocha: It’s made of espresso, steamed milk, and caramelized white chocolate. The Toasted White Chocolate Mocha is finished off with whipped cream, holiday sugar sparkles, and crispy white pearls.
Caramel Brulée Latte: Espresso, steamed milk, and caramel brulée sauce are topped with whipped cream and caramel brulée topping.
Chestnut Praline Latte: The Chestnut Praline Latte features espresso, steamed milk, and flavors of caramelized chestnuts and spices. It’s all topped off with whipped cream and spiced praline crumbs.
Eggnog Latte: Espresso and steamed eggnog come together to make this latte. It’s topped off with a dusting of ground nutmeg.
On Peppermint! On Toasted White Chocolate! On Caramel Brulée! Holiday favorites are back!
A post shared by Starbucks Coffee ? (@starbucks) on Nov 7, 2019 at 4:07am PST
Starbucks holiday drinks nutrition facts
Here’s what you’re getting when you have a grande version of one of these drinks, made with 2% milk. We asked Scott Keatley, R.D., of Keatley Medical Nutrition Therapy to rank them from worst to... slightly better. Here’s his list:
Toasted White Chocolate Mocha
Calories: 420
Fat: 15 g (9 g sat fat)
Carbs: 57 g (0 g fiber)
Protein: 15 g
Sugar: 56 g
Sodium: 380 mg
Caffeine: 150 mg
Eggnog Latte
Calories: 450
Fat: 18 g (11 g sat fat)
Carbs: 57 g (1 g fiber)
Protein: 17 g
Sugar: 52 g
Sodium: 240 mg
Caffeine: 150 mg
Peppermint Mocha
Calories: 440
Fat: 15 g (10 g sat fat)
Carbs: 63 g (4 g fiber)
Protein: 13 g
Sugar: 54 g
Sodium: 140 mg
Caffeine: 175 mg
Caramel Brulée Latte
Calories: 450
Fat: 13 g (8 g sat fat)
Carbs: 70 g (0 g fiber)
Protein: 17 g
Sugar: 47 g
Sodium: 270 mg
Caffeine: 150 mg
Chestnut Praline Latte
Calories: 330
Fat: 13 g (8 g sat fat)
Carbs: 42 g (0 g fiber)
Protein: 12 g
Sugar: 39 g
Sodium: 160 mg
Caffeine: 150 mg
So, is there a healthy way to enjoy these drinks?
Unsurprisingly, dietitians aren’t thrilled with any of these options. “They have sugar counts like soda and saturated fat like full-fat ice cream,” says Julie Upton, R.D., cofounder of Appetite for Health. The drinks are also packed with liquid calories which “aren’t as filling as eating your calories,” she says.
If you want to pick the healthiest of the bunch, Keatley says it’s the Chestnut Praline Latte. Still, he emphasizes, it’s far from being healthy. “This beverage is coming in with 13 grams of fat and a ton of sugar, which is slightly more than the recommended amount of sugar per day for a man and 1.5 times more than for a woman.” But, he says, you can ask for half pumps of the syrup and skip the whipped cream to tone it down a little.
As for the unhealthiest option? It’s honestly a close call among the Toasted White Chocolate Mocha, the Eggnog Latte, and the Caramel Brulée Latte. “The top three are pretty high in everything but the Toasted White has a ton of sodium,” Keatley says.
But Jessica Cording, M.S., R.D., author of The Little Book of Game-Changers, picks the Peppermint Mocha as her worst. With 440 calories and the sugar-to-fat ratio, it’s like drinking a meal.
Ultimately, it’s really best to look at these drinks as a treat, says Beth Warren, R.D., founder of Beth Warren Nutrition and author of Secrets of a Kosher Girl. “They’re all around the same total calories, with a high saturated fat and sugar content,” she says. “If one has less fat, it seems to have more sugar, so that makes distinguishing one over the other as ‘healthier’ difficult.”
If you really want to enjoy some holiday cheer in the form of a Starbucks drink, go ahead—they only come around once a year and are fine in moderation. Just don’t make them an everyday drink, and when in doubt, ordering a tall over a grande will help you downsize the nutritional blow.
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