Dutch Bros Ordering Guide: Every Option You Can Change

A Dutch Bros drink has nine separate things you can change before it reaches the window, and the menu board shows almost none of them. Most people order a named drink and never find out that half-sweet, white coffee espresso and light ice are standard options rather than special requests.

Everything below comes from the build-your-own pages on Dutch Bros’ own site, which list the exact options each category accepts. Order from this and you are not asking for anything unusual.

The Order Sentence That Works Every Time

Broistas take orders in a predictable shape, and matching it saves the back-and-forth. Size, then temperature or format, then the drink, then your changes.

“Medium iced Golden Eagle, half sweet, oat milk” covers all four in one breath. The size tells them which cup to grab, the format tells them which station, the name tells them the recipe, and the changes come last so nothing gets lost early.

If you do not know what you want, say the flavor direction instead of a drink name. Caramel, fruity, chocolate, or not too sweet all give them enough to recommend something, and that is a normal way to order here rather than a confession.

Sizes Come First, and They Change by Temperature

Dutch Bros runs three sizes, but the ounces behind those names are completely different between hot and cold. A medium is not one amount of liquid.

A small iced drink holds more than a medium hot one. That catches people out constantly, and it matters for caffeine and sugar as much as for thirst. The sizes guide has the full breakdown, including the kids cup.

The Nine Things You Can Change

Here is the complete option set from the build-your-own latte, which is the most customizable category on the board. Not every category offers all nine, and the next sections cover which ones drop off.

Sweetness and flavor are separate controls, which is the single most useful thing on this list. You can keep the caramel and cut the sugar, instead of choosing between a sweet drink and a plain one.

Flavors: 21 Options and a Sugar-Free Toggle

The flavor list is longer than the menu board suggests, and it is the same list across most categories. Almond, Banana, Caramel Sauce, Cherry, Chocolate Macadamia Nut, Cinnamon, Coconut, Cookie Butter Sauce, Creme De Menthe, Cupcake, Dark Chocolate Sauce, Hazelnut, Irish Cream, Lavender, Orange, Pumpkin Pie Sauce, Raspberry, Salted Caramel, Strawberry, Vanilla and White Chocolate Sauce.

Every one of them has a regular and a sugar-free version, shown as an SF toggle on the official build pages. Cold brew adds Cane Syrup to the list, and the chai build drops Orange.

Three or four flavors in one cup is where drinks start tasting muddy rather than interesting. Two is usually the sweet spot, and the sugar-free page covers which combinations hold up without sugar behind them.

Milk: What You Can Swap, and Where Breve Hides

The latte build offers six milks: 2%, Protein, Nonfat, Oat, Almond and Coconut. Alternative milks carry no upcharge, which changed in January 2025 and still trips up older guides.

The cold brew and chai builds offer eight instead of six, because they add Chocolate Milk and Breve, which is half and half. That is worth knowing if you want a richer drink.

So a breve is not a milk you can add to a latte. If you want the half-and-half build on an espresso drink, you order from the Dutch Faves side of the menu, where breve versions already exist, or you ask for a build-your-own breve rather than a latte with breve. Same ingredient, different starting point.

Espresso Options Most People Never Use

Four espresso settings exist on every espresso drink, and three of them almost never get ordered: Half Caf, Decaf and White Coffee.

White Coffee is the interesting one. It is a lighter-roast bean pulled as espresso, and it tastes noticeably sweeter and nuttier than the standard shot. It is a free swap on any espresso drink rather than a separate menu item, which is why most people never discover it.

Half Caf is the practical pick for an afternoon drink you still want to taste like coffee. On cold brew and Freeze builds the espresso axis changes to Extra Espresso Shots instead, since those drinks are not espresso-based to begin with.

The Sweetness Scale

Dutch Bros runs four sweetness levels, and they are a genuine control rather than a rough guess by whoever makes your drink.

Half Sweet, Regular, Extra Sweet and Extra Extra Sweet all appear as named options on the official build pages. Half sweet is the most useful order on the whole menu if you find Dutch Bros drinks too sugary by default, which many people switching from other chains do.

Separately you can add Honey as a liquid sweetener, or Sugar, Splenda or Stevia packets. Cold brew adds plain Sugar as a liquid option too. These stack on top of the sweetness setting rather than replacing it, so ordering half sweet with two sugar packets is a real combination and not a contradiction.

Ordering by Category: What Each One Lets You Change

The nine options are not universal. Each category exposes a different subset, and knowing which saves you asking for something that does not exist.

The Freeze is the most locked-down build, because the blend ratio is what makes it a Freeze. You get flavor, sweetness, shots and toppings, and the base stays as it is. The Freeze menu covers the named versions.

Learn Six Words and You Can Order Anything

Dutch Bros runs its own vocabulary, and most of the confusion at the window comes from these six rather than from the drinks themselves.

A breve is made with half and half instead of milk. Soft Top is the sweet cold foam that sits on top of a drink. Sprinks are the sprinkles dusted over that foam. A Rebel is their energy drink base, a Myst is the lighter energy refresher, and a Freeze is the blended version of a coffee drink.

Dutch Faves is the house-recipe section, and its names tell you nothing about the contents: Annihilator, Caramelizer, Golden Eagle, Kicker, Cocomo, Double Torture, White Mocha and 911. Our drinks menu explains what is in each, and the best drinks list is a shortcut if you just want a recommendation.

Ordering in the App Versus the Drive-Thru

The app and the window are not the same experience, and each is better for different things.

Order ahead in the app when you know exactly what you want, especially a complicated build. You tap through the same nine option sets described above, pay in advance, pick a pickup time, and skip explaining a four-change drink through a window. The app is also the only place showing live prices for your specific shop, since Dutch Bros prices locally rather than nationally.

The window is better when you want advice or you are ordering something off-menu. Broistas take custom builds comfortably, and anything from the secret menu is easier to describe out loud by naming its components than to assemble in the app.

One timing note. Mornings between about 7 and 9 on weekdays are the heaviest, and a long custom order lands better outside that window.

Rewards: What to Do Before You Pay

Dutch Rewards is free and the math is unusually good, so there is no reason to order without it scanned.

You earn 3 points per dollar. A free medium drink costs 250 points, which works out to roughly $83 of spending, and 325 points gets you any drink with your choice of milk, flavors and toppings, at roughly $108. Signing up also gets you a free medium drink straight away.

Have the app open before you reach the window, since the points attach when the Broista scans it as you order rather than afterwards. You can also preload a Dutch Pass to pay from app balance, and send a reward to a friend from your own points. If you are buying for someone else, the gift card guide covers that side.

Customizing Voids the Published Numbers

This is the honest catch in any customization guide, and it is worth knowing before you build something elaborate.

Dutch Bros publishes calories, sugar, protein and caffeine for named drinks, but the build-your-own pages carry the line that nutrition information is not available for that item. The same applies to the build-your-own Rebel, which is the base most Rebel orders start from, and to the 911.

So the moment you change the milk, the sweetness or the flavor count, the number on the named drink stops describing what is in your cup. If you track intake, order a named build and change as little as possible, or check the nutrition hub for the documented versions and work from there.

The Short Version

Order in the shape they expect, which is size, then format, then name, then changes. Remember that hot and cold sizes are different volumes, and that sweetness, flavor, milk and espresso type are four separate controls rather than one.

The two changes worth making on your first visit are half sweet and an alternative milk, both free and both standard. And if you build something heavily customized, accept that the published calorie and caffeine figures no longer describe your cup.