Dunkin has not announced its 2026 holiday menu yet, and it usually stays quiet until the last week of October. But the launch date is not really a guess. Dunkin has dropped its holiday lineup on the first Wednesday of November three years in a row, and it has beaten Starbucks to the punch every one of those years.
So here is what is coming, when it lands, and what is actually in the cup. I pulled the official US nutrition for the drinks that keep coming back, and I am flagging clearly which numbers are confirmed and which are my estimates.
When Does the Dunkin Holiday Menu 2026 Drop?
The pattern is tight:
| Year | Launch date | Day |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | November 1 | First Wednesday |
| 2024 | November 6 | First Wednesday |
| 2025 | November 5 | First Wednesday |
| 2026 | November 4 (expected) | First Wednesday |
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Three for three. The first Wednesday of November 2026 is November 4.
Dunkin typically announces about a week out, around October 28, which is when the press release has landed the last two years. If you want the drinks early, the Dunkin app usually shows the new menu a day or two before it goes live in stores.
One honest caveat: this is a prediction, not an announcement. I will update this page the moment Dunkin confirms.
Dunkin Beats Starbucks By One Day
This is the part most roundups miss. The two chains do not launch together, and Dunkin has consistently gone first:
| Year | Dunkin | Starbucks | Dunkin's head start |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Nov 1 | Nov 2 | 1 day |
| 2024 | Nov 6 | Nov 7 | 1 day |
| 2025 | Nov 5 | Nov 6 | 1 day |
| 2026 | Nov 4 (est) | Nov 5 (est) | 1 day |
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Dunkin locks the first Wednesday, Starbucks takes the first Thursday. If you want the earliest possible peppermint drink of the season, Dunkin is where it starts. The full Starbucks side is in the Starbucks Holiday Menu 2026 guide.
Expected Dunkin Holiday Menu 2026 Lineup
Dunkin rotates one or two new items each year and keeps a stable core. Based on the 2025 menu, expect these back:
Drinks
- Peppermint Mocha Signature Latte, hot or iced
- Toasted White Chocolate Signature Latte, hot or iced
- Cookie Butter Cloud Latte
- Cookie Butter Cold Brew
- A holiday Dunkin Refresher
Food
- Seasonal donuts and the holiday munchkins bucket
- A croissant or pastry special, which was the Raspberry Striped Croissant in 2025
- Savory holiday sandwiches, which was the Bacon Jam lineup in 2025
The Peppermint Mocha is the safest bet on the board. It has come back every holiday season for years and it is the drink Dunkin leads the announcement with.
Full Nutrition: Every Holiday Drink, Medium
All figures are for a medium with the standard build and whole milk on the lattes. These are the most recent published values for each returning drink.
| Drink | Calories | Sugar | Caffeine |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peppermint Mocha Signature Latte | 420 | 56 g | ~166 mg |
| Toasted White Chocolate Signature Latte | 410 | 54 g | ~166 mg |
| Holiday Cookie Signature Latte | 380 | 45 g | ~166 mg |
| Cookie Butter Cloud Latte | 370 | 45 g | ~166 mg |
| Cookie Butter Cold Brew | 200 | 37 g | ~260 mg |
| Holiday Refresher (est.) | ~140 | ~30 g | ~99 mg |
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A note on the caffeine column. Every Dunkin Signature Latte runs on the same espresso base, so a medium lands near 166 mg whether it is peppermint, pumpkin, or cookie. The Cold Brew is the outlier at roughly 260 mg in a medium, which makes the Cookie Butter Cold Brew both the lightest latte-style drink on the menu and the most caffeinated. Refreshers pull about 99 mg from their green tea base.
Want the exact numbers for your size and milk? Build the order in the Dunkin Calorie Calculator, and total your day with the Caffeine Calculator.
The Sugar Problem, Ranked
The American Heart Association suggests keeping added sugar under about 25g a day for women and 36g for men. Here is how the holiday menu stacks up against the 25g line:
| Drink | Sugar | vs 25g daily |
|---|---|---|
| Peppermint Mocha Signature Latte | 56 g | 224% |
| Toasted White Chocolate Signature Latte | 54 g | 216% |
| Holiday Cookie Signature Latte | 45 g | 180% |
| Cookie Butter Cloud Latte | 45 g | 180% |
| Cookie Butter Cold Brew | 37 g | 148% |
| Holiday Refresher (est.) | ~30 g | ~120% |
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Every drink on the holiday menu clears a full day of added sugar in one cup. The Signature Lattes are the heavy end, and it is not close: a medium Peppermint Mocha carries 56g of sugar, more than a can of Coke and a half.
That is what a Signature Latte is, though. It is espresso plus flavor swirl plus milk plus whipped cream plus drizzle plus a dusting on top. Five sweetened components in one cup.
The Lightest Holiday Picks
- Cookie Butter Cold Brew, 200 calories. Half the calories of the Signature Lattes and the best caffeine-per-calorie on the menu at 260 mg. If you only change one thing this season, make it this.
- Holiday Refresher, around 140 calories. No milk, no espresso, lowest sugar of the group.
- Cookie Butter Cloud Latte, 370 calories. The lightest of the latte-style drinks, but still a dessert.
If none of those work, a medium Peppermint Mocha with skim milk, no whipped cream, and two pumps of swirl instead of the standard pour drops from 420 calories to roughly 240.
How to Order Any Dunkin Holiday Drink Lighter
Dunkin's flavor swirls are pre-sweetened and carry nearly all the sugar. Flavor shots are unsweetened and add zero calories. That single distinction is the biggest lever on this menu, and I broke it down fully in flavor shots vs flavor swirls.
In order of what actually saves the most:
- Ask for fewer pumps of swirl. Cutting a medium from the standard pour to two pumps saves roughly 15 to 20g of sugar. This is the big one.
- Skip the whipped cream and drizzle. Around 70 to 110 calories together, plus the cinnamon sugar dusting.
- Switch to skim or almond milk. Roughly 40 to 80 calories depending on the drink. Full breakdown in Dunkin milk options.
- Order a small instead of a medium. About 30% off everything.
- Swap the latte for the Cold Brew with a splash of milk and one pump. Closer to 120 calories and more caffeine.
Stack the first three on a Peppermint Mocha and you are near 240 calories and 28g of sugar instead of 420 and 56g. Same peppermint, roughly half the damage.
Free Donut Wednesdays Come Back Too
The holiday menu launch has also marked the return of Free Donut Wednesdays for the last three years: Dunkin Rewards members get a free classic donut with any drink purchase, every Wednesday through the end of the year.
Since the menu itself launches on a Wednesday, day one is usually also a free donut day. That is the single best value moment of the Dunkin year, and it is worth timing your first holiday order around. If you are not clear on how the points math works, I covered it in Dunkin Rewards math.
Dunkin has also run a Joy in Childhood Foundation promotion alongside the launch, where a $1 donation gets you a coupon for a $1 medium hot coffee.
Dunkin vs Starbucks: The Holiday Head to Head
The obvious comparison, peppermint against peppermint:
| Dunkin (medium) | Starbucks (grande) | |
|---|---|---|
| Calories | 420 | 440 |
| Sugar | 56 g | 54 g |
| Caffeine | ~166 mg | 175 mg |
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Almost identical on paper. The catch is size. A Dunkin hot medium is 14 oz against a Starbucks grande at 16 oz, so Dunkin is packing nearly the same load into a smaller cup and is denser per ounce. Order the iced version and it flips: a Dunkin iced medium is 24 oz, so you get more liquid for similar numbers.
If you want the wider comparison beyond the holiday menu, I did the full breakdown in Starbucks vs Dunkin: which is healthier.
What Might Be New in 2026
Dunkin has added one headline drink each year: Cookie Butter Cold Brew, then the Holiday Cookie Signature Latte, then the Cookie Butter Cloud Latte and its first holiday Refresher. For 2026 the likeliest direction is a protein version of a holiday drink, since Protein Milk and the protein lattes have been Dunkin's biggest platform all year. I covered that launch in Dunkin protein milk and the new protein drinks.
I am not going to invent a name for a drink that does not exist. This section gets replaced with the real list the day Dunkin announces.
What I Will Update and When
Two things here are predictions: the November 4 launch date and the returning lineup. The nutrition figures are the most recent published values for drinks that have come back each year, and the Holiday Refresher row is explicitly an estimate.
When Dunkin confirms the 2026 menu, I will update the date, swap in the official lineup, and correct any recipe that changed. If the date call is wrong, I will say so here rather than quietly editing it.
