We Tried Dutch Bros' New Cookie Dough Drinks. Here's How It Went
Eating raw cookie dough used to have the thrill of doing something a little bit bad, since it exposed you to the risk of food poisoning. These days, though, you can easily whip up a batch of safe, edible cookie dough. You don't have to actually eat cookie dough to enjoy cookie dough flavor, either. A quick internet search will allow you to buy cookie dough-flavored whiskey, protein powder, and even scented candles.
It should be no surprise that cookie dough flavor has also started to appear in coffee. At the beginning of July, Dutch Bros released two coffee drinks infused with cookie dough flavor. According to the company, the drinks are an attempt to capture the magic of summer by recreating a nostalgic childhood flavor.
When we found out about these cookie dough concoctions, we knew we needed to try them for ourselves. Cookie dough might pair great with coffee, but if the drinks were too sweet or the cookie dough flavoring was too fake, these Dutch Bros offerings could be disastrous. Read on to find out our honest opinions on the Dutch Bros cookie dough drinks.
What's in the Dutch Bros cookie dough drinks?
Per the Dutch Bros site, the Cookie Dough Cold Brew starts with a base of either regular or nitro cold brew that gets mixed with chocolate chip cookie dough flavoring and chocolate milk. It gets garnished with Soft Top, which looks very similar to the cold foam dished out by Starbucks, and a shake of chocolate sprinkles (or in Dutch Bros brand-speak, "sprinks").
The cold brew's sibling is the Cookie Dough Freeze, a blended frozen coffee drink that Dutch Bros says is made with all the same ingredients. It also gets garnished with a foamy layer of Soft Top.
According to the cashier at the Dutch Bros drive-in we ordered from, either drink can be made dairy-free, though you'll have to forego the chocolate milk and the Soft Top. We thought the Soft Top was a crucial part of making these drinks special, so we'd strongly recommend including it if your body can handle a little bit of dairy, even if you choose to skip the chocolate milk.
Where can you buy them? How much do they cost?
The press release for the cookie dough drinks says they're available at every single Dutch Bros location. At the time of writing, there were 570 Dutch Bros locations in the U.S., but they're not spread evenly throughout the country. The chain is concentrated on the West Coast, with a ton in California, Oregon, and Washington. There is also a fair number of stores in the Southwest, Texas, and parts of the Midwest. If you're anywhere on the East Coast or in the northern parts of the Midwest, we're sad to say you're out of luck. The cookie dough drinks are sticking around on the menu until the end of August.
Dutch Bros doesn't post its prices online, so we can only tell you how much we paid for our two medium drinks: $13.01. That works out to basically $6.50 per drink including sales tax, which isn't too bad for a 24-ounce iced drink with this many bells and whistles on it. The price you pay may depend on where you live.
How do they compare to other Dutch Bros drinks?
Both the Cookie Dough Cold Brew and Cookie Dough Freeze are limited edition twists on existing Dutch Bros menu items. You can order cold brew from the chain in many different permutations (via Dutch Bros). You can start with plain cold brew and drink it as-is, modify it with flavorings, or order two permanent cold brew specialty drinks: the Caramelizer or the White Mocha. If you choose the foamy, creamy nitro-infused cold brew, that gives you even more specialty drinks to choose from. There's also the option to order your cold brew hot if you want the caffeine kick and mellow flavor of cold brew but don't feel like drinking iced coffee.
Dutch Freezes come in an even wider array of options, including truly off-the-wall flavors like Jelly Donut, Flap Jack, and Grasshopper. The cookie dough drinks aren't the first time Dutch Bros has tried to recreate pastry flavors; Cookie, Banana Bread, and Snickerdoodle Freezes are all listed on the permanent menu. By comparison, the options for customizing your cold brew look quite restrained.
What's the nutrition info of these cookie dough coffees?
These are sugary coffee drinks, and they have the stats to prove it. A medium Cookie Dough Cold Brew like the one we sampled comes in at 260 calories, 10 grams of fat, and 36 grams of sugar. Intriguingly, the small size has almost exactly the same nutritional info as the medium, which suggests that it's made with the same amount of sweetener and chocolate milk but has less coffee in it. That's something to keep in mind if you don't like your coffee excessively sweet, as the sweetness of the medium is balanced out by a bit more java. If you order a large, it also makes barely any difference; a large only has 10 more calories and it has the same amount of sugar as the other sizes, which is sort of strange.
The Cookie Dough Freeze is where we get into truly bonkers territory from a nutritional perspective. The small size is 510 calories, the medium is 670, and the large is a whopping 830. The amount of sugar also increases proportionately with size, rising from 55 grams in the small to 79 grams in the large. The small silver lining is the decent amount of protein in the Freeze. If you want a coffee beverage that's the caloric equivalent of a hefty meal, this is the drink for you.
How does the Cookie Dough Freeze taste?
Nutritionally, the Cookie Dough Freeze is the equivalent of a milkshake, and that's what it tasted like as well. First, we'll mention the good stuff. The texture was great. It was satisfyingly thick, but not so thick that it was annoying to suck through a straw. It didn't have any big ice crystals in it, which many lesser frozen coffee drinks do. It had a strong chocolate flavor and tasted like pretty high-quality dark chocolate with a slightly bitter edge.
Sadly, for us, the positives in this one were outweighed by its shortcomings. The chocolate totally overwhelmed everything else we were supposed to taste. We could not detect any coffee or cookie dough flavor no matter how hard we tried. The Cookie Dough Freeze was also so sweet and rich that we didn't want to finish it. It would have been good as a dessert to share with a buddy, but the idea of drinking this as a caffeinated pick-me-up makes us feel kind of ill.
How does the Cookie Dough Cold Brew taste?
The two Dutch Bros cookie dough drinks were a study in contrasts. We loved the Cookie Dough Cold Brew, and it succeeded in all the places the Freeze failed. It wasn't too sweet, and while it had some chocolate flavor, the chocolate made room for us to taste the cookie dough, which was quite nice. The cookie dough syrup reminded us of vanilla, brown sugar, and butterscotch, and it didn't taste artificial.
We could also taste the Dutch Bros cold brew, which was really good. It had a strong coffee flavor but it was also super mellow, with little to no acidity or bitterness. The Soft Top added a great textural element to the drink. It was remarkably dense and stable, surviving a half-hour trip home from the drive-thru fully intact. The topping had a pleasant vanilla and milk flavor that harmonized with the drink without overpowering it. We liked the sprinkles as well, which were a little bit crunchy and tasted like cocoa powder.
Overall, if you want cookie dough-flavored coffee, we'd heartily recommend the Cookie Dough Cold Brew. Skip the Freeze unless you have a serious sweet tooth and don't mind that it doesn't actually taste like cookie dough.