Add a cookie to Middleware

I just created a new Middleware to create a new cookie named 'userKey'.

class UserCookies
{
    /**
     * Handle an incoming request.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
     * @param  \Closure(\Illuminate\Http\Request): (\Illuminate\Http\Response|\Illuminate\Http\RedirectResponse)  $next
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response|\Illuminate\Http\RedirectResponse
     */
    public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next)
    {
        if(auth()->user() != null){
            return $next($request);
        }
        return $next($request)->cookie(cookie()->forever('userKey', Str::random(30)));
    }
}

Not sure why it isn't working. is there anything that i am missing ?