Starbucks Turns 20 and There’s a Frappe for That

The limited-edition Frappe—available for just five days starting rightthisverynow—is made by mixing the Starby’s vanilla bean and hazelnut flavors together, then topping the resulting concoction off with an awesome heap of pink, raspberry-infused whipped cream. Pink!

If you’ve spent any time on Instagram, you probably already know this isn’t the first official limited-edition Frappe to hit the market since the frozen drink’s invention back in 1995. We’ve seen a green Franken Frappucino for Halloween and a blue Seattle Seahawks version for the Super Bowl just this year. Of course, there are also about a billion other Frappe flavors available on the Starbucks Secret Menu.

The what?

The Starbucks Secret Menu. You didn’t know about this? Neither did I, until my 12-year-old enlightened me back when she was in sixth grade, so allow me to return the favor. See, there’s a menu. And it’s secret. Except it’s not so much an actual menu as it is a name given to the collection of kickass custom frappes that Starby’s fans have invented over the years.

Cotton Candy? There’s a Frappe for that! Same goes for Cookie Dough, S’Mores, Nutella, Cadbury Cream Egg and my personal fave… Cap’n Crunch, made by taking a standard issue Starbucks Strawberries and Creme, then tricking it out with caramel, toffee and hazelnut syrups plus two scoops of java chips. How this bizarre mix of ingredients adds up to a drink that tastes exactly like a bowl of Cap’n Crunch is beyond me. But it does. And therein lies the magic of the secret menu.

Now that your mind = officially blown, you’re probably wondering how you go about actually ordering one of these bad boys. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Just kidding. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is this: Pick your poison by browsing the list of off-menu items on your phone, then take a screen shot of the recipe and bring it to the store. Then just tell the barista what you want. It’s that simple. Sometimes they will know how to make the customized frap by name, sometimes they won’t. But that’s what you took that screen shot of the recipe for.

So now you know. What you choose to do with this highly classified information going forward is entirely up to you. And oh yeah—this post will self-destruct in five seconds. Cheers!