DIY No-Caffeine Starbucks Pink Drink
Slice ½ cup of fresh strawberries. Use a knife to remove the stems and any bruised spots on the strawberries. Then, slice each strawberry into several pieces. Don’t worry if they aren’t even. Set a few slices aside for a garnish.
Muddle the sliced strawberries in a glass, then add ice. Muddling is lightly smashing fruit or herbs to release their juices or oils. After you put the strawberries in your glass, firmly press into them with your muddler and twist a few times. Cover the muddled strawberries with enough ice to half-fill the glass. Muddling is easiest with a muddler, but the end of a wooden spoon also works.
Combine 2 cups of cran-strawberry juice and 1 cup of coconut milk. Use a separate container so you can mix the juice and sweetened vanilla coconut milk well with a spoon. Cran-strawberry juice isn’t as dark pink as the Strawberry Acai concentrate Starbucks uses to make Pink Drinks, so your homemade version may be a paler pink. Use a hand blender or cocktail shaker for extra blending, but mixing with a spoon works well. Experiment with the proportion of juice to coconut milk if you prefer a Pink Drink that’s milkier or more tangy. Substitute cran-raspberry juice if you can’t find cran-strawberry.
Pour the mixture into the glass with ice and muddled strawberries. Once you’ve mixed your caffeine-free Pink Drink, pour it over the ice and muddled strawberries. Then, add a few strawberry slices for a tasty and colorful garnish. A Pink Drink can be a little difficult to drink if your muddled strawberries get sucked up into the straw. Avoid this by using a wider straw or drinking your Pink Drink straight from the glass!
Homemade Caffeinated Pink Drink Recipe
Heat white grape juice, sugar, and strawberries in a saucepan. Mix 2½ cups of white grape juice, ½ cup of sugar, and 1 cup of strawberries together. Set your burner at medium-low to bring the mixture to a simmer. Allow it to simmer for about 10 minutes to make a strawberry-flavored simple syrup, then remove the saucepan from the heat. The liquid will be bright red. Slice the strawberries before heating them to help incorporate more juice into the syrup. Set the syrup aside for 10 minutes before straining for more strawberry flavor.
Strain the syrup and return it to the saucepan to continue heating. Use a fine-mesh strainer to strain the strawberry pieces from the syrup. Put the saucepan back on the burner on low heat. Don’t use pressure on the strawberries when straining, or seeds and fruit may filter into the syrup.
Whisk in lemon juice and acai, passion fruit, and coffee extract powders. Measure out ½ teaspoon each of passion fruit powder and green coffee bean extract powders and 1 teaspoon each of lemon juice and acai powder into the heated syrup. Wisk to blend in the ingredients, then pour the mixture into a container and refrigerate until ready to use. Leave out the green coffee extract to make a caffeine-free version.
Combine strawberries with equal parts of the syrup and coconut milk. Use a blender or cocktail shaker to emulsify equal parts of coconut milk and strawberry syrup. Add a few fresh or freeze-dried strawberries and give the mixture another quick shake. Emulsifying the coconut milk and syrup blends the liquids with the fats in the milk for a smoother texture.
Pour the mixture into a glass filled with ice and strawberries. Pink Drinks are best when drunk over ice. Toss a few sliced strawberries into the bottom of a glass. Then, add ice until the glass is ½ to ¾ full. Pour the coconut milk and strawberry syrup mixture over the ice and top with a few strawberry slices.
What is a Pink Drink?
It’s a Starbucks drink made with strawberries and coconut milk. The Pink Drink is a strawberry-flavored iced drink with hints of passion fruit from Starbucks’s Refreshers line. It’s made by mixing coconut milk and freeze-dried strawberries with their Strawberry Acai Refreshers beverage. Because it uses coconut instead of cow’s milk, the Pink Drink is a vegan-friendly drink option. There are several ways to customize the Pink Drink when ordering at Starbucks, like adding matcha cold foam, flavored syrups, strawberry puree, white mocha sauce, or peach juice. Other customizations include swapping out the coconut milk for heavy cream or other types of milk or having the drink blended into a slushy consistency.
The Pink Drink was originally part of Starbucks’s “secret menu.” The secret menu is a collection of drink recipes not part of the coffee chain’s beverage menu. Many of these recipes come from patrons customizing drinks and sharing images of the results on social media. The Pink Drink was added to the official Starbucks menu in April 2017. Ordering drinks that aren’t on Starbucks official menu requires you to know what the ingredients are since the barista may not be aware of what’s in the drink. Starbucks also launched a bottled version of the Pink Drink in 2023.
Frequently Asked Questions about Pink Drinks
Is the pink drink the same as a strawberry coconut drink? In Canadian Starbucks locations, the Pink Drink is called the Strawberry Coconut Drink. They are the same drink with the same ingredients. Some Canadian baristas have reported on forums that customers still order the Strawberry Coconut Drink as the Pink Drink, but they can still make it.
Does Starbucks bottled Pink Drink have caffeine? According to the label, the bottled version of Pink Drink has less than 5mg of caffeine per 14 fluid ounces. So, the bottled version does have caffeine, but it’s significantly less than the original drink made at Starbucks locations. For comparison, a Tall Pink Drink (12 fluid ounces) has 35mg of caffeine when ordered at a Starbucks.
Is the Pink Drink okay for kids? Official Starbucks Pink Drinks all have caffeine. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, there is no proven safe dose of caffeine for children. Children under 12 should avoid caffeine entirely, and those between 12 and 18 should consume less than 100mg daily. Make one of the caffeine-free versions at home for kids who want to try their own Pink Drink.
Is the Pink Drink at Starbucks healthy? While the Pink Drink is not as unhealthy as some drinks on Starbucks’s menu, it’s not the most healthy option, either. A 16-fluid-ounce Grande contains 25g of sugar, which is half the daily allowance of added sugar recommended by the US Food & Drug Administration.
Can you order the Pink Drink without caffeine? The Strawberry Acai concentrate is one of the main ingredients of the original Pink Drink, so they can’t make it without caffeine. Ask for an Iced Passion Mango Tea, a hibiscus herbal tea without caffeine, with coconut milk and strawberries for a drink that looks like a Pink Drink and has a similar flavor.
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