If you are reading this post it means one of two things…either you are a total Starbucks addict like I am…OR you are frugal like I am and would like to indulge in the deliciousness that Starbucks has to offer but you are too cheap, or…”frugal” to do so and you are looking for ways to bring the flavor of Starbucks to your kitchen to not miss out on life.

Either way,  I’m glad you stopped by.  This blog won’t be groundbreaking, it’s pretty much old news at this point, but indulge me if you don’t mind.  Apparently this “Pink Drink” is a thing but I was totally unaware as I’m a coffee person more than a refresher or tea person when I do go to Starbucks so I had no clue…

Recently, as in like literally 6 weeks ago, I gave birth for the first time to a beautiful baby girl.  In doing so I began the magical (somewhat hellish) journey of breastfeeding which I was totally not as prepared for as I thought.  Turns out your milk supply sometimes can be inadequate or inconsistent, who knew.  In spending countless hours researching ways to increase my supply, one of the suggestions I received from numerous people, Mom Groups etc was to try the mysterious Starbuck’s Secret Menu item called the “Pink Drink”.  To be clear, it’s not necessarily the drink itself that has magical boob milk powers.  Turns out coconut (milk, water etc) can have a positive impact on supply so they say.

With this in mind, and out of shear frustration that my baby girl is having way more formula in conjunction with my breast milk than I would like, I went to our local Starbuck’s where I know the barista by name (it’s sad really) and ordered it.  It felt so unnatural and weird to order anything but my usual drink by the way (a grande iced vanilla latte with only 1 pump of vanilla syrup)  Like I didn’t even know if I was saying it right…or if the barista would know what I’m talking about.  Thankfully he knew exactly what it was and the ordering process was pretty seamless.

My thoughts after trying it was that it was amazing.  It is delicious and different.  It is very light and refreshing making it perfect for summer/warm weather.  I felt kind of bad paying $5 a pop for it, especially considering the volume I will be drinking in my quest to see if it will help my milk supply.  So I decided I would figure out a way to make it myself and off to the store I went to buy all the ingredients.

The recipe I used can be found here:

Starbuck’s Pink Drink Recipe

My thoughts:

• It was harder than I thought to find Acai Berry Green Tea – and when I say hard, I mean they didn’t have any at the one grocery store I went to so I just bought something else and was too lazy/busy/didn’t care enough to go to Whole Foods or somewhere else to try to find the exact tea you are supposed to use.  So I substituted and used the Celestial Red Raspberry Zinger tea and it was really tasty.
• It’s not as sweet as the Starbucks original, which is good for me as I like things lightly sweetened/unsweetened anyway.  I used local raw organic honey as my sweetener because that is what we had on hand but Agave would probably be just as good.
• It was pretty easy to make it and the longest part of the process is boiling the water & steeping the tea but you could totally make the tea ahead of time and keep it in the refrigerator and pour as needed I would think?  
• I saved $5, and the planet each time I made one as that is one less cup, straw and lid in the landfill – so you’re welcome for that.  About that $5…well I’ll probably blow that $5 I just saved somewhere else.  Probably on makeup if we are being totally transparent here.
• I wonder if using fresh sliced frozen strawberries in place of the ice cubes would make it taste better so it doesn’t get as watered down?  I may try that next time.  It’s just a thought as I sit here and reflect.

Before you try this at home, please know there are quite a few different variations of the rip off recipes for this drink when you Google it which was a little overwhelming.  I had a hard time narrowing down which recipe I wanted to go with at first but chose the one that seemed the easiest.

The final verdict is that it was just as good as the $5 a pop original and here’s hoping it helps my milk supply (along with the many other things I’m eating/taking/doing to increase my supply in conjunction with this)

Until next time…

XOXO, Crazy Jess