First, she could buy her own flowers, and now she can buy her own Starbucks drink, too, thanks to one fan who turned the now Grammy-winning song into a personalized beverage.
Musician LYELL on TikTok has gone viral in the past for her series ‘Songs Turned into Coffee’, and her latest choice is Flowers by Miley Cyrus, which Cyrus won ‘Best Pop Solo Performance’ for last weekend at the Grammys. It was also the singer’s first GRAMMY despite making music since she was a teenager.
In the video, @lyellgirl pulls up to her local Starbucks drive-thru and asks the barista to create a drink based on the song, which she also sings a few bars of. The barista accepts the challenge and comes back with a modified Paradise Refresher.
What’s in the drink?
According to the barista, the drink that embodies the song Flowers is a ‘blended paradise drink with strawberry puree and topped with strawberry inclusions.’ The description of a traditional Paradise Refresher on the Starbucks website is ‘Tropical flavors of pineapple and passionfruit combine with diced pineapple and creamy coconut milk to create a delicious island escape.’
Asking a Starbucks barista to create or modify a drink to a particular theme is a popular internet trend known as ‘the secret menu’ and is a polarising subject between customers and baristas. Many baristas complain on social media about customers asking them to make complicated drinks, but many customers get excited about getting a drink that may taste like their favorite cereal, for example.
The trend was extremely popular in the 2010s at the height of Tumblr and Pinterest and has now been given a new lease of life on TikTok, with thousands of people posting videos of them ordering and trying custom recipes.
The latest recipe to go viral is a drink inspired by the childhood cereal ‘Cocoa Puffs’, which combines mocha sauce, toffee and hazelnut syrup, blonde espresso for a latte and vanilla bean for a Frappuccino.
Where did this all start?
LYELL first started this series in 2022, when she got 1.2 million views, asking a barista to make her a drink based on ten seconds of her original song that she played for them. She has since posted videos doing the same thing but for Taylor Swift songs such as ‘Lavender Haze.’
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Starbucks themselves have teamed up with celebrities in the past to sell exclusive drinks, such as Ariana Grande’s ‘Cloud Macchiato’ back in 2019. However, Grande received controversy over the fact that she was a self-proclaimed vegan, but the drink did not have a vegan option. So, while LYELL’s creation is not an official Miley x Starbucks drink, it’s not impossible to believe that a collaboration between the two could happen.
There was also a craze recently when Starbucks teamed up with American retailer Target to launch a range of Stanley Cups that were exclusive to Target stores, with black-Friday levels of crowds showing up to get their hands on the coveted drink holder that has taken over social media.
