Wawa, Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts doing pumpkin spice; Fifer offers apple cider slushies

Forget about kids going back to school, or finally being able to find parking at the beach. The true harbinger of autumn is the arrival of pumpkin spice everything.

And it's almost upon us.

Wawa and Dunkin' Donuts will be ready and waiting for fans to fill up on pumpkin goodies come Monday, and Starbucks will join the fray on Tuesday.

Coming to a Wawa near you Monday are all drinks pumpkin spice, from coffee — including K-cups and ground coffee bags — to pumpkin cheesecake milkshakes, according to Lori Bruce, Wawa public relations manager.

Want a sweet treat to go with that? Too bad. Pumpkin muffins and doughnuts won't be available until Thursday.

Dunkin Donuts is doing pumpkin, but is also offering other flavors within fall's cornucopia. By Monday, autumnally obsessed fans can pick up pumpkin and maple pecan-flavored coffee in all its forms — hot, iced, cold brew, espresso, frozen, K-cups and ground, according to a press release.

Dunkin's muffins and doughnuts will be available at the same time. It's also introducing an apple crisp doughnut and Belgian waffle breakfast sandwich, with egg, American cheese and a double portion of "sweet caramelized maple sugar bacon." 

If you're already annoyed at the tsunami of pumpkin heading our way, blame Starbucks. Its Pumpkin Spice Latte, or PSL, arrives in stores for the season on Tuesday. 

The Seattle-based coffee peddlers first introduced the pumpkin spice latte 15 years ago. It began in a research and development lab, where tasters ate bites of pumpkin pie followed by sips of espresso to pinpoint the exact tastes to highlight, according to Starbucks. The drink — almost called the Fall Harvest Latte — went on sale in Washington, D.C., and Vancouver in 2003 and launched from coast to coast the following fall. 

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Since then, Starbucks expanded its pumpkin spice offerings to include ground coffee, latte and coffee K-Cup pods, iced espresso pumpkin spice latte and VIA Instant Pumpkin Spice Latte. This year, the company added pumpkin spice cookie straws.

Fans of Delaware's Brew Haha! will have to hold on a few weeks for their seasonal drinks (and sweet treats) to roll out. The Harvest Moon Latte (white mocha, caramel and pumpkin) and the Pumpkin Spice Latte (white mocha and pumpkin spice) will arrive in mid- to late-September, according to Erin Silva, manager of the Concord Pike location.

With the drinks are coming pumpkin loaf slices, pumpkin muffins, scones, and all manner of baked goods.

APPLES STEAL THE SEASON

Pumpkin drinks haven't stolen all the shine from apples.

Fall at Fifer Orchards is apple cider season, according to fourth-generation owner/operator Michael Fennemore.   

The orchards' No. 1 selling drink? Apple cider slushies.

And you can only get them at the Country Store, located on the farm at 1919 Allabands Mill Road in Camden Wyoming.

The farm's apple cider is made from crushed apples — nothing else — and is available from Sept. 15 to Dec. 23, Fennemore said. And with cider come doughnuts, and those are made April 1 to Dec. 23. Everything but the cider slushies is also available at the Dewey store.

At Milburn Orchards in Elkton, Maryland, apple cider doughnuts are a year-round affair, said Becky Unruh, coordinator of the Farm Market.

But you'll have to wait for cider. It returns mid-September.

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This year there's been a switch among the two orchards. For the first time, Fifer Orchards is collaborating with Vanderwende's Farm Creamery to make an apple cider doughnut ice cream.

That's something Milburn Orchards and UDairy have been producing for a few years, said Andrea Schaaf, UDairy events coordinator.

But this year, the Milburn-UDairy collaboration won't likely be on the menu, and it's not for lack of popularity, Schaaf said.

"We like to cycle through our flavors," she said.

The ice cream makers at the University of Delaware are still deciding which fall flavors will be scooped come mid-September.

USA Today contributed to this report.

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