Just a few hours ago, I found International Delight’s new Reese’s Iced Cofee on DoorDash and decided to order it and try it for the first time. I had never tried it, but I am always buying Starbucks’ Frappucinos. I am a bit of a taste tester and I appreciate good food and drink, so why not, right?

Well, after having tried it, I wanted to write International Delight to tell them my thoughts and give some review of their product, but they only accept ideas within the company. So, to share my thoughts on this new drink, I have taken to my website in the hopes of interesting you to at least try it once. Once you’ve tried it, maybe you can form your own thoughts about it and share it with others who may be interested in trying the drink but don’t wanna spend the $4+ per can required for it.

So, without further ado, let me tell my side of the story.

the new drink comes in a metal/aluminum can

First, the new drink comes in a metal can, which to me is a huge turnoff. I have had to drink Ginger Ale in cans before, but cans to me are often nasty (depending on where they sit for a while until bought or sold). Once you get them, you have to pop the top and then wipe the top of it because you don’t know where it’s been or what kinds of germs are on it. And in this post-COVID era we’re living in, metal cans are ultimately becoming a cheap route for food and drink producers alike. They cost next to nothing to use and are what food and drink producers use when they wanna save some dollars and cents. But they’re not really that health-conscious.

Why are they not health-conscious? because metal can be carcinogenic. I know this due to the fact that my beloved mother (who passed on some years ago) worked in an engineering facility for a living. Being around engines that are made of metal often gives one exposure to carcinogens because metal contains all sorts of chemicals that are harmful to humans. The more you’re exposed to something, the greater the chances you have of being affected by it. Genetic history plays a role, but if you drink water with all kinds of chemicals in it, for example, you are likely to end up sick in the end. Flint, Michigan is an unfortunate testimony to this fact.

For a drink that costs $4 and up, you’d think that International Delight could’ve used a bottle as Starbucks does for its coffee drinks. However, International Delight could have used plastic bottles instead of glass bottles (as Starbucks does) if it wanted to save some money. Plastic bottles are durable and allow the contents of a drink to be at least visible in some sense. Additionally, plastic bottles are often what water is placed in, and you can often find the organic crowd (the health-conscious among us) drinking water in plastic bottles, not metal cans. International Delight offers more coffee for its buck though (15 ounces for over $4 as opposed to Starbucks’s 13 ounces), but still, every company makes compromises. The metal can seems to be one of International Delight’s compromises.

How real is the real milk?

The advertising for the Reese’s Iced Coffee says that it is made of real milk and cream. However, once you taste the dessert drink for the first time, you will realize that the “real milk” claim needs some unpacking. The milk is real, but it’s not the milk you’ve spent most of your life consuming; instead, it’s skim milk.

Raise your hand if skim milk is your favorite milk to drink.

There are a few out there that will likely know about skim milk and find it to be a healthier option for their milk consumption, but most average Americans do not drink skim milk. There’s a reason why “2% reduced fat” milk has prevailed for many Americans for many years. Add to this that a number of Americans are lactose intolerant, and even LactAid milk offers a sweet choice without all the dairy intake of regular milk. But I’d dare say that more Americans are lactose than drink skim milk (and the research agrees, as 44% of Americans are lactose-intolerant while only 18%, at most, drink skim milk).

There’s some evidence to back up this claim about 2% reduced fat milk as more preferable than skim milk. According to the USDA in 2015, Americans preferred 2% reduced milk 2.5 times more than skim milk, 35% to 14% based on milk consumption. Google’s Gemini AI says that 36% of milk drinkers prefer 2% reduced fat milk to skim milk’s 10.5%-13% (see screenshot above). Skim milk can certainly be healthier for you, but a number of low-fat foods and drinks are healthier. The issue with these healthier options, however, is not that they’re not good for you, but rather, they don’t taste good to you. There’s a reason why so many people don’t select grapefruit as a healthy fruit option and eat watermelon instead.

why did international delight opt for skim milk in its reese’s iced coffee instead of regular non-skim milk or 2% reduced fat milk?

Why did International Delight opt for skim milk instead of 2% reduced fat, LactAid, or whole milk? This gets to the heart of the product itself. They could’ve gone with a regular or reduced fat milk, but they didn’t. I think that skim milk is an indicator of who or what the company is after, who they’ve made this product for.

And unfortunately, it isn’t most of Americans.

I started to answer this question by looking at the product as a whole. What did International Delight hope to achieve? They make creamer for coffee every day. Creamer is that sweet liquid you pour into coffee that makes the coffee better, sweeter, more satisfying to drink. Natural, black coffee may work for some, but there’s no way I would opt to drink coffee without creamer in it, forever.

If they can make creamer (and do so successfully) for coffee, then why not opt for 2% reduced fat milk instead of skim milk? Why not add a more robust creamer taste to the product?

Perhaps it is the case that they wanted to cater to their audience with regard to the skim milk. Maybe they prefer to be more health-conscious and wanted to pass this on to their customer base. Perhaps skim milk, with all its positive and healthy properties, is a nontraditional alternative in this new era of organic food and drink. Maybe with this product, the company is hoping to reach a small subset of the population that doesn’t wanna drink coffee with all its fattening ingredients like sugar (among other things).

I think International Delight crafted this coffee with one group of people in mind.

Who are they?

The health-conscious crowd, those who watch their weight but still want a little bit of life’s indulgent pleasures. This group is either affluent or willing to pay top dollar for an organic or low-fat taste because they believe that low-fat or organic is better than normal sugars. This crowd understands that organic food and drink are more expensive and they’re okay with that because they believe it’s better for their body and will enhance the quality and quantity of their life by consuming it.

Think about it: what International Delight crafted with this new Reese’s Iced Tea is a low-fat Iced coffee. After all, if the organic coffee crowd is not in view here, why do they say on the can itself that the drink is “made of real milk”? You would normally assume that coffee drinks have milk in them, right? If you go get a milkshake, the word “milk” in “milkshake” makes you assume it’s made of milk, right?

Well, that is, unless you’re a health-conscious person who would be willing to drink a milk-like substitute if it tastes the same but proves healthier than the real thing. And you wouldn’t use the phrase “made of real milk” for a milkshake that already has real milk in it. That language is only used in the case of artificial milk (a milk substitute). And so, it’s obvious that International Delight needed to demonstrate to the organic coffee crowd that they didn’t insert a milk substitute for milk in its new coffee drink. A milk-like substitute is not the same as milk, but only the health-conscious would be aware of such terminology, not the majority of everyday Americans who care about their health but still wanna enjoy traditional milk.

How many of us long to drink low-fat iced coffee? Do you think about the calories consumed behind iced coffee? I sure don’t. When I go to a local Sheetz gas station to pick up a Starbucks vanilla frappucino, I do not look at the calories on the back of the bottle. I simply think about the great taste I’m gonna get and how much I will enjoy having one of my favorite coffee drinks. Calories and whether the milk is reduced fat (or how much percentage reduced fat) are the farthest thoughts from my mind when drinking Starbucks frappucinos or any other sweet drink.

But how much logical sense does a low-fat iced coffee make? Let me paint a picture: what if you decide one night to go out with your family for a midnight run to a local IHOP? International House of Pancakes still makes some of the best pancakes out there. I am a huge fan of their buttermilk pancakes and strawberry syrup. Imagine you and your family plan to go out for a surprise IHOP visit at midnight. Your mouth starts to water when you think of your favorite dish there, the buttermilk pancakes with strawberry syrup and whipped cream.

Imagine how you would feel if you got there and placed that first bite on your tongue, only to be grossed out because the butter you remember is now low-fat butter? What if the syrup has now been replaced by a “low-fat strawberry syrup” that your tongue rejects because that is not the great quality taste you remember? To be sure, the low-fat butter and syrup may be healthier options for you, but how can IHOP expect you to eat it if it doesn’t taste good to your palette?

What would you think if someone said, “I’m going to go try this new Reese’s Iced Coffee drink?” For me, at least, I would expect it to taste like Reese’s Cups. I’m expecting a rich, milk chocolate taste. I’m not expecting the drink to be bitter, but to be sweet because of the peanut butter. Along with these mental expectations, I also expect the drink to be rich in calories. I am not drinking this Reese’s (emphasis on the Reese’s here) Iced Coffee to watch my weight, or for the sake of my health. I am drinking it with the express purpose of indulging myself in a high-calorie drink that my tongue will gladly applaud.

If that is what you want in a Reese’s Iced Coffee, buyer beware here because that is not what you get.

You are getting a low-fat iced coffee, a health-conscious drink that is more of a Weight Watcher’s low-fat chocolate smoothie than anything else. And that may work for the Weight Watcher’s crowd, to be sure. There’s nothing wrong with weight loss and health consciousness. Nothing. The problem comes in, however, when you make a product that’s health-conscious with skim milk in it when the majority of Americans drink reduced fat milk, and then sell it in everyday gas stations like Sheetz and Speedway.

The problem comes in when you take this health-conscious drink for the organic crowd that will spend $4+ for a low-fat coffee and then sell it to everyday Americans who don’t drink skimmed milk and prefer their coffee to be sweet and fattening. There’s a problem when you don’t understand that to put the word “Reese’s” on a drink gives a sweet, sugary impression, and then you oversell and under-deliver on the product itself.

You can’t name a drink “Reese’s” and then produce a low-fat alternative under the same name. That is not the expectation people have come to know. The traditional Reese’s taste is for people who want zero compromises in their sweet treats. And what they’re thinking when they see the name “Reese’s” is not what they get in this drink. They get a Reese’s-like taste that is a low-fat smoothie of all things. That has its appeal with a particular subset of the population, but make no mistake: that subset is small.

Most Americans don’t drink skim milk for a reason, and that point was lost on the creation of this drink. I think it was an intentional oversight on the part of the company, and with a particular financial reason in mind.

This reese’s iced coffee has potential, it just needs a classic non-skim milk version

I’ve expressed above that I believe this Reese’s Iced Coffee was for the organic crowd, the health-conscious population subset that wants to watch calories and get a decent taste without the sugary calories and goodness. With that said, I think it has great reach within the organic crowd. It has the potential to do well because it does offer that low-fat taste they crave.

However, I think that they need to sell this to only the organic coffee crowd and provide a Classic Coffee version for the rest of us that provides that rich milk chocolate taste we’ve come to expect from the Reese’s brand.

A Classic Reese’s Iced Coffee version and an Organic Reese’s Iced Coffee version would give consumers two choices. At least with two choices, International Delight could see which gets the most attention and money. I don’t have to be a betting person to know which one would grab my money.

final thoughts

The International Delight Reese’s Iced Coffee is not a terrible drink. I didn’t taste the drink and think “I wasted my money.” However, I tasted the drink and found myself disappointed because, from the packaging (marketing) that says it is made of “real milk” with the word “Reese’s,” I expected a sugary taste that would make me want to order it again, like Starbucks bottled frappuccinos. Instead, it helped cement my love and preference for Starbucks vanilla frappucinos above all other coffee drinks.

Every company markets a product with two elements: the transparent and the mysterious. The transparent element includes the brand name or the name of the product. They don’t want you to miss that because it is the grab that makes you willing to spend your money on it. With the Reese’s brand intact in this drink, so many everyday Americans will give it a try because they know the name “Reese’s” and they know the quality of Reese’s candy over the years.

But then there is the mysterious, that part that you don’t know. And even with a name like “Reese’s,” I still wanted to try the Iced Coffee to see if it was worth it. It has a Reese’s-like taste, but that is not the same thing as it being actually Reese’s quality. Additionally, they tell you that it is made of “real milk”; it is, if you think skim milk is real milk and are used to it. Skim milk is a mysterious element of this drink that evokes a response from you; it will, once you taste the drink for the first time.

I think this low-fat Iced Coffee drink that bears the name Reese’s is problematic for a few reasons, but this will have some appeal in the health-conscious subset among us. Hopefully International Delight will get on a Classic Coffee version so the more indulgent among us can appreciate it, too.

Have you tried the new Reese’s Iced Coffee version? Do you appreciate the taste? Let us know what you think of the new drink in the comments below.