Is There a Pumpkin Spice Latte Shortage in Shreveport?

McDonald's has the McRib and Starbucks has the Pumpkin Spice Latte. Both items are highly sought after and people anxiously await their arrival. This year, The Pumpkin Spice will arrive...but there may be a Pumpkin Spice Latte shortage.

As it is, The Pumpkin Spice Latter is only available from Starbucks in the fall. Couple that with the Pumpkin Scone and you have a 1-2 punch in the morning. And Lord knows, they have a dedicated following...so dedicated, that they may drink it all, which would create a shortage of the tasty beverage.

So you want the real story behind the story?

Starbucks did such a good job marketing the specialty drink so well, that it may have actually worked too well. For the last two years, Starbucks has run a contest that awards one town with the taste of the Latte. This year, the luckiest taste-buds in the world was in Leavenworth, Washington. This past year , the company asked patrons to write “pumpkin spice haikus,” such as:

“I love pumpkin spice / Do not even need a cup / Connect the I.V.” and “Dear Mister. Pumpkin, / Thank you for your sacrifice, / you taste rather nice.”

The promotion has worked so well that many customers have entered their local Starbucks only to be told that they are out of the sauce used to make the Pumpkin Spice Latte! Even though the Starbucks patrons love their local story, that hasn't stopped them from taking to Twitter to express their sadness and dismay:

“My world almost ended this morning when the local Starbucks told me they were out of Pumpkin Spice Latte,” wrote Jason Sizemore of Lexington, Kentucky.

The nice part for us in the Ark-La-Tex, at this point, the Starbucks at Pierremont and the location on Airline are both full stocked...so far. And according to Lisa Passe, spokesperson for Starbucks, "there’s no pumpkin emergency."

While the Pumpkin Spice Latte is popular and “there is a huge rush for the product," Passe says that it could become the company’s biggest holiday drink, beating out their signature Peppermint Mocha and making it the top-selling limited time beverage.