Each day in America, millions of people prepare their embattled psyches for a futile resistance against a consumerist hellscape; one that is built upon sly marketing tactics, data brokers, and a mind-bending stream of information. Even before stepping out the front door, we are subjected to a barrage of advertisements that, at best, worm their way into our subconscious and deposit a harmless jingle or catchphrase. In the past decade, the smart devices we have invited willfully into our homes double as undercover informants for the conglomerates that peddle them. These gadgets relay our interests, habits, and deepest desires to those that surreptitiously play the role of puppet master for an entire nation of target markets. I have prided myself over the years for eluding The Algorithm effectively, disabling features that would otherwise reveal fragments of my personality to the powers that be. It’s always rewarding to see them throw a wild pitch with advertisements for a far-away Golden Corral or medieval war-themed smartphone games, but even the strongest defenses have a weakness. On one cold February night, my weakness came in the form of my approximate geographic location – the epicenter of Dunkin’ Donuts’ Northeast kingdom.
While waiting patiently through the commercials on my bottom-tier Hulu subscription, a stark white ad spot illuminated the room. At the center of the infinite brightness stood a towering, perspiring beverage voiced over by the gravelly yet sultry tones of Massachusetts native, Jason Mantzoukas. It was an advertisement on the verge of perfection: succinct, sexual, and surgical. Before I knew what had happened, a familiar orange and pink Dunkin’ Donuts slogan flashed across the screen then faded to black. Something immediately stirred deep within me. It was as if they pulled on a string that was tethered to one of my earliest memories: riding on the back of my mother’s bike, holding a box of Munchkins branded with the same timeless color scheme. For a New England local, this kind of feeling is something that only the omnipotence of Dunkin’ Donuts has the capacity to incite; a cradle-to-grave experience that renders time irrelevant and reminds you of both your childhood and of the future simultaneously. Until the nation collapses, there will never be a version of life in New England that isn’t punctuated by its franchise storefronts. Perhaps America Runs on Dunkin’ because it has given up on running from it.
Days passed, and I couldn’t shake the thought of this visual earworm (I’d call it an “eyeworm” but that makes even less sense.) Eventually, I gave in and decided it was better to know what I was missing than be taunted by the larger-than-life cutout of the new signature drink in front of my local Dunk’s. On a dreary Wednesday morning, I pulled into the drive thru and immediately sensed something different – an air of excitement at the other end of the intercom as I placed the order. When I pulled up to the window, I wasn’t greeted by my typical attendant. The woman who oversaw the drink’s creation noticed it wasn’t made properly by her trainee, and without me uttering a word, she had a new one created to spec. I can only assume she was a high-ranking corporate ambassador tasked with tracking my location for days, ensuring my inevitable transaction went smoothly. As she handed me the beverage, she left me with two simple words: “Enjoy life.” Never has that task been so effortless.
The Dunkin' Donuts Caramel Chocolate Cold Brew is the latest installment in a long line of concoctions they keep churning out until they run out of ideas and reboot the Coffee Coolata. I am ashamed of how good this drink is. I expected it to taste like a chocolate-flavored Guinness with sugar in it, but that doesn’t quite scratch the surface. Topped with a coating of cookie crumbles undoubtedly harvested from the beaches of a tropical edition of Candyland, the drink is served not with a straw but a lid with a sipping hole in the top. The vessel is an invitation to become intimate with the beverage the moment you hold it, prompting you to touch your lips gently upon the sweet crust held aloft by a layer of foam below. It’s a moment that feels private - one that you may find necessitates avoiding eye contact with your fellow commuters at stoplights. If you can eschew the anticipation, it may be best to wait until the first quiet moments of the workday, alone at your desk. Just beneath the crust is the cold chocolate foam which can only be described as a chocolate foam that is also cold. The first sip, fluffy and sweet, as the subsequent ones dive deeper into the murky depths below. These silky trails running down into the abyss offer a gradual introduction to the strong brew waiting at the bottom. The combination of caffeine and sugar, packing much more of a punch than my daily driver, left me with a buzz for the rest of the day on razor’s edge. Somewhere between the event horizon of eternal bliss and forgetting to eat lunch while hiding the slight tremor in my extremities. It hits like a safe-for-work version of the original Four Loko recipe. After a few hours, that effortless bliss revealed its true nature: a temporary shock to the nervous system akin to micro-dosing spiritual enlightenment. Even the small one I ordered proved to be too much of a daunting task to complete. Still, the drink achieves exactly what they want: to remind you that however far artisanal coffee culture has come in the past 20 years, they have something that nobody else can recreate. It’s something that, I imagine, could only be synthesized in one of Boston’s infinite laboratory spaces, funded by Ben Affleck’s abundant Hollywood fortune. I can’t imagine the research funding that must have gone into it, but I assume the plans for it date as far back as the debut of The Town.
Categorizing Dunkin’ Donuts as a coffee shop at this point would be like calling Walmart a convenience store. It may still present itself as The Little Donut Shop That Could, but that illusion was shattered for me years ago when I came across one in the heart of New Delhi. Under the hood, it’s a finely tuned machine that preys upon the caffeine-starved bundle of nerves in all of us that also feels we deserve cake for breakfast. Releasing a signature iced drink in the frigid doldrums of February? Business bravado of that caliber is only found in one of two scenarios; reckless impulses on the downslope toward bankruptcy or calculated efforts backed by years of solid market research. Dunk’s has proven time and time again that they know their demographic more than the clientele know themselves. It was difficult to find proper nutritional facts on the drink, but honestly, I didn’t try too hard to find them. Companies may go to great lengths to have their darkest secrets scrubbed from the internet, but my own shame prevented me from trying too hard to find a count of added sugars. You might think, “What the hell happened to our society that necessitates a drink like this?” Sometimes, it’s just easier to surrender to the notion that however decadent the vices of our culture are, they can still be enjoyed.
Moderation is something I strive for in my daily life, but there is no room for such a noble pursuit in the face of Dunkin’ Donuts’ seasonal offerings. If you find yourself somewhere on that pesky moral spectrum between abstaining and indulging, then in the case of the Caramel Chocolate Cold Brew, I recommend taking the advice of my mysterious barista: Enjoy Life. There is nothing subtle about it, so why temper your capacity for joy, however fleeting it may be in our collective capitalist nightmare. Indeed, like every other Dunkin’ iced beverage, by the time it melts, you’re left with a pale, diluted shadow of what once was. You just have to be happy with the time you spent together. And honestly, if I finished the entire thing, I might have just died by some sort of saccharine-serotonin syndrome. This one at least deserves the dignity of being poured down the drain instead of forgotten half-empty under a seat on the Orange Line. As you watch your precious novelty beverage leave behind a ring of guilt in the sink, rest assured they’re already devising the next one.
