Trying Dunkin' Flavor Shots & Swirls in Iced Tea
It was not that long ago that I figured out you could add flavors to your iced tea at Dunkin’ Donuts. But according to the Dunkin’ app, you can only raspberry and blueberry flavor shots. Those two have always sounded the best, but there were a few others that sounded like they might be pretty good in iced tea. So, I decided to try them all—even the ones I didn’t think would taste so good. Spoiler alert, they taste pretty much exactly as you would expect them to in iced tea.
French Vanilla Flavor
Dunkin’ actually offers French Vanilla flavoring two different ways: as a (unsweetened) flavor shot and a (sweetened) flavor swirl. The French Vanilla shot is extremely strong and a little bitter. I thought it tasted like drinking coffee in iced tea, needless to say not pleasant. It also smells strongly of butterscotch, though I didn’t taste any butterscotch. That is, until that night when I had a Butterscotch Pecan cookie from Insomnia Cookies—and I realized it tasted exactly like my iced tea from earlier that day.
I decided not to try the French Vanilla swirl because I was not a fan of the flavor as a shot and because (as you’ll see), the swirls don’t really mix well texture-wise with iced tea.
Hazelnut Flavor
Hazel also comes in both a flavor shot and swirl. I ultimately decided only to try the flavor shot, for pretty much the same reasons as the French Vanilla flavor. I only got one shot of hazelnut in my iced tea, but it was super strong. It basically tasted like drinking straight up cold hazelnut flavor. Personally, I’m not a fan of hazelnut flavored things (wild, I know), so I didn’t enjoy the flavor in my iced tea. But if you do like hazelnut, you might enjoy this.
Toasted Almond Flavor Shot
Toasted Almond was the flavor shot I was most unsure about because I really felt it could go either way in iced tea. It ended up having a smooth, lightly sweet flavor (despite being unsweetened). It reminded me of something that I still can’t put my finger on—maybe an almond joy or some other almond candy? Overall, I enjoyed this flavor in my iced tea, but I’m not sure I would bother to order it again.
Coconut Flavor Shot
I was most excited to try the coconut flavor shot in my iced tea, and my excitement was warranted. It gave my drink a typical coconut flavor. Once again it was smooth and mildly sweet. It reminded me of Argo Tea’s Coconut Oolong iced tea. Of all the flavors that Dunkin’ offers, this is the only one I would definitely recommend in iced tea (besides the typical fruity ones, though I might even prefer it over blueberry).
Caramel Flavor Swirl
Caramel was the first flavor swirl I ordered, and I was just as confused when I received my iced tea as the cashier was when I ordered it (and most of these flavors). It looked creamy and pretty much just tasted like sweetened iced tea with a little bit of milk, so I honestly thought the barista may have added some milk to it. I’m pretty sure they didn’t, but maybe they should have. The flavor didn’t really do anything for me and the texture was very weird. I would be curious to know if this tastes better as an iced tea latte, but I don’t think I’ll be ordering one from Dunkin’ anytime soon.
Mocha Flavor Swirl
After the caramel flavor swirl, I didn’t have high hopes for the mocha. It was very chocolatey, which might have been okay except for the fact that the cashier put my order in as a green tea. Putting aside the fact that I don’t really like green tea, some tea companies make chocolate flavored black teas—I don’t know of any that make chocolate flavored green teas, and there is a reason for that. Besides the type of tea, the creaminess of the flavor swirl once again did not mix well with iced tea. Again, it might be better with milk (like Dunkin’s new oat milk), but I won’t be trying it again to find out.
My overall ranking of Dunkin’s flavor shots and swirls for iced tea would be: raspberry, blueberry, coconut, toasted almond, hazelnut, caramel, mocha, and lastly French vanilla. However, Dunkin’ did recently release a chai latte for fall, and I think some of these flavors would taste better there. I won’t be trying it because I am allergic to chai, but I think French Vanilla might actually taste pretty good in the latte, especially considering Dunkin’ has always had a vanilla chai on their menu (now more accurately listed as vanilla spice). If anyone does try any flavors in Dunkin’s chai latte, or their chai latte at all, let me know in the comments or on social media!
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