Dear Dunkin’ Donuts: I Worshiped Your Spicy Ghost Pepper Donut — Please Bring It Back
Dear Dunkin’
It is August 2021 and the aisles of megastores across the country have already started stocking their shelves with Halloween supplies and goodies. Like every year, it seems that the holiday merchandise seems to appear sooner than the last. Typically I stifle an internal groan at the first sign of pre-Halloween season pumpkin-spice-everything… but this year is different.
This year all I can think about is the Spicy Ghost Pepper Donut.
Introduced as a seasonal Halloween treat on October 14, 2020, this half-way-through-the-month afterthought crushed the field of the greatest donut inventions. Like something straight out of an episode of Zumbo’s Just Desserts, this delectable, ghoulish take on the classic yeast donut delivers a punch straight to my lower intestines with its spice-packed strawberry flavored icing. In the midst of the pandemic its creators intended to, “help our guests keep their Halloween spirit alive this season.” Thank you Dunkin’, it has kept my spirit alive 11 months later… praying beside my bed each night for its return.
My mouth waters as I type this. Dare I say it was your best creation? Oh, I dare: the Spicy Ghost Pepper Donut is the best donut I have ever eaten in my life.
I live for the spice. I typically tell waiters in Thai restaurants to give me that 5/5 spicy level, giving confirmation that “I like to cry when I eat and die on the toilet afterwards.” But it’s not all about heat for me; it’s about flavor. The spice must complement the meal or the morsel in my mouth. My taste buds need to feel that slight tinge of pain (reminding me that I’m still alive) dancing with the pleasure of delectable fulfillment.
The Spicy Ghost Pepper Donut does all of this and more.
It’s sweet strawberry icing perfectly pairs with cayenne and capsaicin. Not terribly spicy but just enough to where my mother-in-law can eat half of one and proudly declare that she has done so. I am proud of you J! The tiny red sugar granules sprinkled on top add the satisfying texture every donut deserves and the Halloween theme it stems from makes it the perfect treat to warm the stomach on a cool autumn day.
The Ghost donut you have created is haunting my dreams. I wake in the middle of the night, sweating because my husband is sweating, wishing that I could just taste that Spicy Ghost Pepper Donut once again.
So please, Dunkin’, please bring back the Spicy Ghost Pepper Donut. It is the treat I am looking forward to the most this fall. I would also like to stop having to hit refresh on your news page while I wait for tidings of great joy. Eating a Spicy Ghost Pepper Donut once again would likely complete my soul just in time for my heart to be emptied by a loved one dying of covid, in which case I would eat another one of these donuts to fill it back up with capitalist warmth again.
Seriously though, I fucking love this donut. Bring it back.
