Nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and clove are spices we mainly associate with autumn and Christmas because they are used in various combinations in gingerbread, egg nog, fruit cake, and pumpkin pie. Well, okay, cinnamon is used year round, but you get my drift. Before the 21st century, you rarely saw these spices outside of the kitchen. There were some soaps and candles with those spices, but they weren't labeled as pumpkin. There was McCormick's pumpkin pie spice, but no one used it for anything besides pie.
Then in 2003, Starbucks introduced their Pumpkin Spice Latte, and suddenly the term "pumpkin spice" was everywhere, despite the fact that the Starbucks drink contained no pumpkin at the time, and neither did the other products. The scent became so popular that we had jokes like the pumpkin spice oil change and pumpkin spice condoms.
Still, the scent of those spices and the memories they evoke are pretty powerful. Pumpkin may be American, but the spices that go into it have a bloody colonial history. Read about how those components came together in a history of pumpkin spice at BBC Travel. -via Nag on the Lake
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I noticed while grocery shopping the other day that there was a sugary snack prominently labeled "Harvest Spice" -- apparently an attempt to continue using the same spice mixture while dodging the antagonism associated with how "pumpkin spice in everything" is perceived.
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