Drink #19: ‘the poet’s pie’ | Dr. Zhivago

The nineteenth drink of my book as a bev series is a pumpkin spice oat latte topped with coconut whipped cream. This bev is based on my hardcover copy of Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.

Serving fall even though it’s almost summer, my first dual temp drink recipe. (My brother did not want something hot, haha). This specific hardcover is the International Collectors Library edition, and I was happy to have stumbled onto it as it’s very pretty! I could not find an HD version of the cover for my graphic so I scanned my copy.

This beverage’s name is:

‘the poet’s pie’

Name Explained: I have not read this yet, but I’m hoping to eventually get to it and add to my goal of watching film adaptations of books this year. I know the movie stars Omar Sharif and we’re a household that were fans of his growing up! All I know is that the story is an epic historical fiction and romance novel with the titular character being a physician and poet. Drawing on that, and the fact that the beverage’s flavor profile is akin to a pumpkin pie, brings about this rather on the nose drink name.

Pumpkin Sauce: This pumpkin sauce is the same that I’ve used in my previous pumpkin matchas. I honestly think it’s the perfect balance of sweetness and pumpkin so I haven’t changed the formula at all and decided to see how it would fare with coffee. The answer is that it fared fairly well!

Milk: I’ve made both iterations of this drink with whole and oat milk. Feel free to use whatever milk you prefer, but I found that to get that very dark orange hue oat milk works best and the flavor of the spices and pumpkin come through much better.

Cinnamon Coconut Whipped Cream: I think using coconut whipped cream adds something to the drink that regular whipped cream doesn’t. It enhances the spices and brings a sweetness that’s complimentary to them! I topped it with some cinnamon, but using more of the pumpkin spice works as well!

RATING: Overall I’d give the final drink a 5.0.

Flavor Combination: This drink out came out perfectly sweet, I wouldn’t change anything about it! The coconut whipped cream paired well with the spices and pumpkin in the latte. For the hot version of the drink, the cinnamon stick seeped into the beverage and did affect the flavor a bit when it was left in there – mostly sweetening it further. Since it was used for decor only, I’d skip on adding it if you don’t want it to change the flavor profile of the drink.

Ease: The hot version of this drink was slightly easier to make than the iced since it involved adding everything to a small pot and letting it simmer before topping it with the cream, whereas the iced involved adding the flavor to the coffee separately before assembling the drink, but since both versions need the homemade pumpkin sauce I’d say overall it’s in the middle of the complexity scale. Using a premade sauce or pumpkin butter would result in a much quicker/easier beverage.

Appearance: Both bevs look deceptively light in this photo, but in real life they are a more vibrant/dark orange. The perfectionist in me isn’t entirely happy with the color match since I initially wanted to make the whipped cream myself and have it be more gold like the cover, but that would’ve overcomplicated the process. For those reasons I did not give it that high of a score visually.

Ways to Improve: There was nothing I’d change about the flavor, but for the sake of visuals, I think I would whisk the coconut whipped cream by hand with some cinnamon to have a more tan/gold hue to match the book better.