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Baristas Are Having Meltdowns Over Starbucks’s Unicorn Frappuccino

So innocent looking … Photo: Starbucks

Yesterday was Unicorn Frappuccino D-day at Starbucks, which meant an unstable amount of Instagramming, and tons of baristas who’ll never again see the words “Unicorn Dust” without twitching involuntarily. The drink is only available until Sunday, so that’s causing Frap fanatics to go on a five-day fairy-powder bender. If you haven’t yet heard what’s in it, the recipe calls for a cream-Frap base and ice to be blended with various numbers of pumps of white mocha, vanilla syrup, mango syrup, and classic syrup. That makes the pink portion. Baristas then layer in a sour, blue drizzle, top the concoction off with whipped cream, and then sprinkle on pink powder (which is sweet) and blue powder (which is sour). It’s pretty complicated as far as Starbucks drinks usually go, and thus far, baristas are responding by saying things like, “I wanna die.”

The dissident barista getting the most attention is Braden Burson, a 19-year-old barista in Colorado who had a meltdown after his shift ended. In a video posted to Twitter, he goes on a diatribe about how difficult the Unicorn Frap is to make, and begs people to please not order one. “My hands are completely sticky; I have unicorn crap all in my hair and on my nose,” he yells at the camera. “I have never been so stressed out in my entire life.” He’s since tried walking back this fury — the tweet is gone, and he later told the AP that the drink’s “great” actually, just not when “there are like 20 Fraps all at once.”

But plenty of other baristas have also already put out cries for help.

One even did it as a series of live updates on Reddit:

We’re almost out of the blue mucus. Our cold bar counter is bright purple. One of our blenders shattered while making a unicorn with extra unicorn shit. One of my partners is screaming.

Edit 5:30 pm: Out of blue unicorn mucus. Putting in extra blue unicorn dandruff instead. As one customer said, “as long as it looks the same!”

Edit 7:35pm: The unicorn is dead. RIP unicorn. People are rioting outside.

Starbucks said today that the drink’s reception has “exceeded everyone’s expectations.” It’s promised to sit Burson down and “talk about his experience and how to make it better.”

Starbucks’s New Unicorn Frappuccino Is Misery for Baristas