Spoilers ahead for The White Lotus Season 3 finale, so fire up that Max subscription if you haven’t completed the season yet!
Our stay at The White Lotus has come to an end on the 2025 TV schedule, as Chelsea and Rick turned out to be the guests departing Thailand in bodybags. As tragic as that was, one of the most horrifying parts of the finale involved the Ratliff family and some poisoned piña coladas — a pretty unfortunate circumstance considering Coffee Mate’s truly wild collaboration with the show on a piña colada-flavored creamer. Even other brands like Cheez-Its, Welch’s and Pringles agree it’s “awkward,” and I can’t get over these reactions.
Over the course of the season, we saw Timothy Ratliff (too much of him, in fact) struggling over how to tell his affluent family that he had been implicated in illegal business dealings and they were about to lose everything. In the finale, Jason Isaacs’ character decides to add poison fruit to the family’s piña coladas, killing all of them except Lochlan, his youngest.
He doesn’t go through with it, but it still put Coffee Mate in a strange position, given the rollout of their new White Lotus flavor just weeks earlier. The company posted on Instagram:
As dark as the whole situation is, I love that Coffee Mate saw the humor in it — especially given the fact that Nestle execs reportedly didn’t know how piña coladas would play into The White Lotus Season 3 finale.
What’s even better is how other brands reacted to the news. After Coffee Mate spotlighted its awkward predicament, Welch’s Fruit Snacks did its best impression of Timothy (in full Jason Isaacs accent, I presume), writing:
The coconut milk is OFF!!
Other companies joined in, with Kendall-Jackson wines drawing inspo from Parker Posey’s amazing Victoria. Their comments included:
- Kendall-Jackson: Have you ever heard of wine?
- Pringles: Piper nooooooo
- Cheez-Its: Crying 😭
- Dole: 😳😳😳
I can’t get enough of these reactions, honestly, and Coffee Mate’s parent company Nestle seems to be taking the potential PR nightmare in stride as well. Daniel Jhung, president of Nestle USA’s coffee and beverage division, told the Wall Street Journal they were unaware that poisoned piña coladas would be such a huge plot point, but looking back, The White Lotus team had been excited that that was one of the flavors pitched to them. Jhung said:
Obviously, the writers keep this [under] lock and key, so we didn’t know that piña colada was such a featured part of the last episode. I will say that in hindsight, we were showing the different flavors, and the fact that The White Lotus team was like, ‘Oh, you know, piña colada is a really good idea, you should go in that direction’ — it now kind of makes sense.
I’ll say this: Nestle and Coffee Mate certainly handled the situation with cooler heads than Duke did regarding its association with the Ratliffs. After Timothy wore a Duke T-shirt in a graphic scene in which he contemplated suicide, the university released a statement saying The White Lotus had gone “too far,” using their brand in such a way without permission.
It’s true that at least Coffee Mate was actually in business with The White Lotus, even if they didn’t know the whole context. Jason Isaacs got the last laugh with Duke anyway, making a very intentional choice with his wardrobe at the finale event.
It’s all over now, though, and fans are left to sip on their (hopefully not-poisoned) piña coladas while we contemplate where Season 4 might be set.
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