I’ll be totally honest, when talking about food, there haven’t been too many things in the outside world that I have missed terribly during quarantine. I mean, of course I will randomly have a craving for McDonald’s breakfast, my favorite local hamburger place, or Chick-fil-a nuggets and waffle fries, but I’ve also landed somewhere around the deep end of the coronavirus paranoia spectrum, which means I legitimately only leave the house to make Walmart Grocery Pickup runs and then aggressively sanitize each item as I bring it inside.

However, before all this started, I was a v basic Starbucks regular, and y’all already know how much I love my Pink Drinks. Taking on the role of crazy hermit lady during quarantine meant that even though our local Starbucks drive-thru line remained open, I haven’t indulged in a Pink Drink for almost 2 months now, which has got to be some kind of Guinness world record.

I saw a sample dupe recipe online and decided to take matters into my own hands, which involved me ordering a bulk box of 100 teabags on Amazon, but it was totally fine because SCIENCE, am I right? I spent a few days testing and tweaking to get it just right, and here’s what I ended up with!

HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

1 cup of water
2 tablespoons of sugar
2 acai berry tea bags (I got mine here)
1/4 cup of white grape juice
3/4 cup of coconut milk
Fresh strawberries
Ice

First, add 2 tablespoons of sugar to 1 cup of water and stir until the sugar dissolves. Next, add your acai berry tea bags to the sugar/water mixture and let steep for 5-7 minutes. Remove the tea bags and add in 1/4 cup of white grape juice. Finally, add in 3/4 cup of coconut milk (this is what gives you the classic color of a real Pink Drink). I did the whole thing in a clear measuring cup so I could easily see the amounts I was adding in - you’ll have a total of 2 cups (16 ounces) of liquid when all these steps are complete!

Pour over ice, add in fresh strawberries, and enjoy! It was the perfect amount for my favorite (Venti!) Starbucks reusable cup. You can see a video of my whole process right here on Instagram.

A FEW NOTES:

- A lot of the dupe recipes I saw called for much more white grape juice than I personally recommend. I made it several times, using less and less each time (because if you use too much, it’s all you can taste), and to be completely honest, I’m not sure I’d miss it if I left it out completely.

- Starbucks uses freeze-dried strawberries in their Pink Drink, but I swapped them out for fresh ones because I had them on hand, and thought it was even better! And of course if you’re weirded out by floating fruit in your beverages (I know some people are!), you can totally leave them out altogether.

- You’ll see in the IGTV video that my coconut milk was vanilla flavored. It was all I could find in stock at the time (hashtag quarantine), and I was nervous about it messing with the overall flavor, but I definitely didn’t think it affected the taste at all!

I dont know that anything will ever truly replace a classic Starbucks barista-made Pink Drink, but this super easy-to-make dupe comes REALLY close! 😉 Are you thinking of trying it? Let me know how it goes! And as always, come hang out with me on Instagram.. I absolutely LOVE to chat with y’all!