Pumpkin Spice Latte: Thank you, Gentle Reader, for supporting Season One of this blog

When I started this blog, I envisioned a relaxing hobby I could do at the end of the day after my kids went to sleep. What I learned instead is that writing is difficult—even if it's just about scoring coffee-based beverages with an arbitrary rating system involving Stars and Bucks.  But I know one thing: I will never again say that writers are overpaid. Although, now that I think about it, I never actually said that in the first place. In any case, I won’t start saying it now.

But despite the unique challenges blogging presents, I still had tons of fun with Season one and with this post I have at last reached my goal of writing 20 entries.

Thank you, gentle reader, for helping to make this blog the number one Starbucks-related blog in Southwestern Ontario. And a special thanks to all the baristas of Starbucks for educating me on the available drinks and helping to provide material for this blog. I will be back at an unspecified date in the future for a second season, but for now I take a hiatus and return to normal life as a Starbucks regular.

To finish the season, I went with a classic: the Pumpkin Spice Latte. They say you never forget your first PSL and in this respect it is a bit like losing one’s virginity, albeit with less unfortunate sobbing afterwards. It's simply impossible to be a true Starbucks devotee without trying this drink at least once in your life and damn this drink is delicious. I got it half-sweet with whipped cream and whatever else it is they sprinkle on top. As one might expect, the PSL has an unabashed pumpkin taste, with more subtle flavours of cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. But what really takes this latte to the next level is its creamy texture and the ever-so-slight espresso flavour lurking just beneath the surface.  This drink is great to sip when autumn arrives and if you’ve never had one, you should get it.

Verdict: If you like pumpkin, have a wistful yearning for the autumns of your youth, and secretly worry that humanity is on an irreversible path that leads to our complete annihilation, then go get one now!

Score: 7.5 Stars and 7 Bucks out of 10.

Eggnog Latte and the Circle of Life

Blogging about Starbucks has allowed me to at last peek behind the veil and catch a coveted glimpse of the Starbucks inner circle. Doing so, as one might expect, offers the regular customer numerous perks, including the opportunity to potentially drink several litres of expired watermelon juice in one sitting, being able to hear baristas discuss unfortunate tinder experiences, and the opportunity to view several hundred vaguely incomprehensible imgur memes involving characters from the Japanese anime series Pokemon.

A few nights ago when I got all that sweet watermelon juice, I noticed a card on the long bar that divides the patrons from the baristas.  I asked who the card was for and was told that a regular had died and the baristas had all gotten together to make him a card.  I found the story touching and it’s one of the things I really love about my Starbucks.  It gave me the incomplete hope that if I were to die then perhaps the baristas would get together and make a card for me, too.  Maybe they’d write stuff like, “Hey, Jason! Word on the street is you’re dead!”—OK, maybe I haven’t thought so much about the logistics behind how this card would actually work in practice, but I was nevertheless moved by the idea.

I came back to this very same Starbucks after work yesterday and again cracked the elusive Starbucks inner circle, sitting with baristas, including one who was off the clock and discussing her recent dating experiences.  She had a great story about how before one recent date she had told the guy how she loves sweet potato fries. Then I guess while she was in the bathroom or something during their meal, the guy had arranged for there to be roughly seven pounds of sweet potato fries waiting for her when she got back. Incidentally, I used to always do little romantic gestures like that on my dates too, but then I’d inevitably screw it up by yelling, “YOU WILL EAT ALL SEVEN POUNDS OF THOSE SWEET POTATO FRIES RIGHT NOW, DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?”

Yeah, dating is hard.

But it sounds like this guy avoided such classic dating pitfalls and did everything right for the remainder of the night---I guess we’ll just have to tune into the next season of this blog to see how their relationship blossoms.

So, yes, I got to experience every aspect of the human condition from love to death (and now that I think about it, pretty much just those two things) during my two-day stint in the Starbucks inner circle. I suppose that’s probably why everyone says that when you’re in the inner circle, the highs are so high and the lows are so low.

What’s that? No one actually says that? OK, my bad.

But I should get to my drink review. With this, the penultimate post of season one, I review the Eggnog latte, which I got yesterday after lunch. I ordered the tall version, because eggnog is no fucking joke. The eggnog is steamed and poured on top of espresso shots and the beverage is then lightly dusted with nutmeg.

Eggnog is one of those polarizing things that people either love or hate. Personally, I love it, and that along with a healthy appreciation of espresso are really the only necessary preconditions for enjoying this beverage. This is not a drink you can have every day, but it’s great to have once or twice as December rolls around.  Overall, I preferred the Dirty Chegg to this one, and even the Chai-Eggnog tea latte is probably tastier overall, although it lacks the kick the espresso in the Eggnog latte offers. Still, this one is definitely worth a try, gentle reader.

Verdict: If you love eggnog and are motivated by an overwhelming sense of self-loathing and shame, this is your drink.

Score: I give this one five Stars and five Bucks out of ten.

Expired Watermelon Juice

People who know me know I love my kids.  Granted, I’ve spent a good chunk of their formative years drinking Jose Cuervo out of a coffee mug while watching my “White Chicks” DVD, but ultimately it’s the thought that counts. Although now that I think about it, most of my thoughts during that time were about how sweet it would be to drink some Jose Cuervo out of a coffee mug and then watch my “White Chicks” DVD.

But I guess my point is: my heart’s in the right place. Or maybe my point is that “White Chicks” is a surprisingly layered film that deserves multiple viewings while drinking Jose Cuervo out of a coffee mug.

Whatever my true point might be, I think we can all at least agree that: 1) Terry Crews possesses true comedic acting chops; and 2) it's about time I changed things up and reviewed some expired watermelon juice.

Because I’m such a great Dad (or so other pedestrians tell me after I mention in passing that I have kids), I’m always taking my son to after-school events and other extracurricular activities. Last night I took him to Cub Scouts and after I dropped him off I drove to my Starbucks. For some reason I don’t entirely understand, I got to drink a whole bunch of expired watermelon juice for free and I think it might have been the single greatest night of my life.

I should mention, first, that I’m not a big juice-guy. I had drunk maybe two or three glasses of juice in the past six months before last night. One time I tried doing a three-day juice cleanse, and roughly six hours in I had to expand my definition of juice to include stuff like Nyquil because I found the experience so intolerable.

So, yeah, you could say I was a juice-skeptic before last night.

But after my first sip, I realized I could easily do the aforementioned cleanse with expired  watermelon juice. It's fantastic. One barista, W, who was off the clock said the experience was like drinking a watermelon.  It felt profound as he said it, but after reflecting upon his statement a bit, I'm now pretty sure that's more or less the entire point of watermelon juice.

Now, if you'll excuse me, gentle reader, I have a “White Chicks” DVD to get back to.

Verdict: Like drinking a watermelon?

Score: 9 Stars and 8.5 Bucks out of 10.

Blonde roast: Something different

The blog has now become all-encompassing—a lumbering, disquieting lamprey that has slowly sucked all hope and joy from my life and left a shell of a man in its wake. On a more positive note, I did eat half a jar of buttercream frosting after dinner, and that was pretty good.  But now not even the promise of sleep can provide respite from this blog, and last night I dreamt I wrote a blog post after designing my own special drink at Starbucks. In theory, it sounds like I perhaps constructed a beverage worthy of the so-called secret menu—clandestine drink recipes of which only the most serious of Starbucks devotees are even aware—but in practice my dream just went like this:

Me: I’d like a coffee, please.

Barista: OK. Is there anything you’d like us to add to your coffee?

Me: Bacon bits.

I was even crafting sentences about the saltiness of the bacon bits complementing the bitter coffee flavor before the drink had even arrived. But when I finally sipped the drink, it had no taste.

And then I woke up.

I don’t know what this dream means, but I’ll interpret it on a practical level as saying that I need to take a break from blogging pretty soon.  

But not quite yet, gentle reader!  

Yesterday and then again this morning, I went into Starbucks and ordered the blonde roast.  I asked the manager several hard-hitting questions about the differences between the various roasts, which he expertly answered. But then I totally forgot everything he said and I went home and watched some movie about a British prostitute on the Lifetime network.  The takeaway in all of this, however, is that Starbucks has multiple roasts of their coffee, and the blonde roast is different from most other coffees I have had in the past.  This particular roast has a light fruitiness to it that makes it easy to sip and which, as far as I can tell, is absent in other Starbucks coffee varieties. 

Yesterday I had it with heavy cream and today I had it black and then later with half-and-half.  All of the variations were great. 

There’s a Starbucks barista who has given me several money-saving tips that one can employ at Starbucks and she’s probably saved me a couple hundred dollars at this point. To be fair, I’m pretty sure I just reinvested these savings back into Starbucks over the past three weeks while making this blog, but that’s life. 

One particularly useful tip she gave me this morning is that Starbucks offers free refills on their coffees and cold brew (not the espresso-based drinks) when one stays in the store.

Now that I’ve discovered the blonde roast, I might never leave.

Verdict: A fruity almost nutty variety of coffee and certainly worth a try.

Score: Seven Stars and six Bucks out of 10.  

London Fog with Almond Milk: Delicious!

People often tell me I’m a throwback to one of those old Russian writers like Solzhenitsyn---except instead of living under the unforgiving fist of a despotic regime, I must instead contend with the detachment and isolation of modern existence; and rather than honing my craft between years of forced drudgery in a brutal Soviet Gulag, I instead just spend a bunch of time eating Cool Ranch Doritos.

But I write this post to let you know, gentle reader, that while my circumstances may be different from those of, say, Zamyatin, I suffer for my craft, nevertheless—it’s just that in my case the suffering takes the form of compelling myself to repeatedly drink disgusting coffee-based beverages at a Starbucks located inside a strip mall.

Yesterday, however, I had an unexpected respite from this cavalcade of sugary drinks when I ordered a London Fog—an Earl Grey Tea latte with vanilla syrup added.  As the title of the post suggests, by recommendation I had it prepared with almond milk, and I'll mention that I had a single pump of the vanilla syrup added. This drink is absolutely delicious. Not too sweet and with delicate flavours and warm tones that linger on the tongue after each sip.

After I bought this tea latte, I took my daughter shopping for presents. I took long sips of the London Fog as we went store to store looking for a doll she wanted. I realized the drink was even more complex than I had initially thought, having subtle juxtapositions of multiple flavours. Beyond the straightforward Earl Grey and vanilla flavours, I soon identified some not-quite-tangible taste that evaded classification. At this point, I realized they were already playing Christmas music. To make matters worse, it was that song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” being sung as a duet by Rod Stewart and Dolly Parton. Memo to Retailers during the holidays: I DO NOT NEED TO HEAR ROD STEWART TALKING ABOUT HOW MUCH HE WANTS TO HAVE SEX WITH DOLLY PARTON!

Oh, and the missing flavour is lavender.  I looked it up.

Verdict: Subtle, delicious, and a perfect rainy day beverage.

Score: 8 Stars and 4 Bucks out of 10.

Matcha Green Tea Latte: A taste of Japan (if things in Japan happened to taste totally gross)

Today we deal with an almost drink request, gentle reader.  I went a bit out of the way to another Starbucks this morning to get the Matcha Green Tea Latte, and it was not at all what I was expecting. It was actually incredibly sweet—probably as sweet as any of the half-sweet versions of the holiday drinks, although I admit that the underlying Matcha flavour was not bad. I nevertheless couldn’t get into this drink due to the incongruity between my expectations and reality.

I really wanted an “East meets West” experience, and this drink was just way too west.  And maybe that’s fair. Perhaps with globalization and everything else that exists today there is now minimal distinction between East and West. But in the `80s, when I was a kid, it was different.

Back then pretty much every night there was a TV show or movie about a vaguely mystical Asian man who would deliver wisdom to a young white boy in cryptic form and the result would be a bond that transcended the very confines of age and race.  Even though this mystical old Asian man was a gentle man---who could be moved by a particularly striking sunset---occasionally he would flip out and kick a bunch of dudes in the face for some reason.  But that was just to keep the story moving---most of the time the kid would talk to the guy and say things like, "Biff from the football team keeps beating me up! What should I do?" and the Asian man, speaking with a thick, heavily stereotypical accent, would be like, "Squirrel with most acorns is strongest, but mighty squid has no need for acorns."

Then the kid would know that he was supposed to confront the bully and that the bully would ultimately back down.

In the movies, everything would somehow work out all right for the kid.

In real life, however, these mystical elderly Asian men don't actually exist.  Don't get me wrong, I'm sure something like the incident described above has happened at some point, but then the white kid probably followed the guy's advice and got his ass kicked. Then he was probably like, "Hey! Why the hell did you tell me to confront Biff? Now I'm essentially in a full body cast."

Then the Asian guy was probably like, "I never told you that!" and then when the white guy reminded him about the whole squirrel/squid story, the Asian dude was probably like, "That story? I was high on COCAINE, Son! I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about.”

And so to return to today's drink, I suppose I had a vision of how this drink should taste based on images of older Japanese men sipping green tea from 1980s movies, and that’s clearly not the right mindset to go into this experience with.

Verdict: Probably OK if it no sugar is added, but the sugar is unnecessary in this one.

Score: 3 Stars and 2 Bucks out of 10.

Caramel Brûlée Latte: Can someone please put an end to this Kafkaesque nightmare?

I think I’ve probably had more whipped cream in the past two weeks than I had had in my entire life before then, and at this point I’m pretty sure I’m going to die fairly soon. I went in yesterday after work and ordered the Caramel Brûlée Latte. I then drove straight home and spent some quality time with my son, tossing the football around and basically just teaching him how to be a man in this modern world.  OK, I actually spent the next three and a half hours binge drinking on the couch in my pyjamas while watching “Girlboss” on Netflix as my son played Fortnite upstairs, but I’m still hoping my son will be able to look back at these times with a nostalgic fondness once I’m dead.

So, yeah, I got the CBL, and I got it with minimal sweetness, but this is definitely the sweetest of the holiday lattes.  As is the case with all lattes, it begins with steamed milk and espresso, but they then add their caramel brûlée sauce---which has an unflinching sweetness that is tempered by a subtle smokiness---and then add whipped cream and a caramel topping. This one’s actually pretty good. People ask me what the Stars and Bucks rating means and, honestly, I have no fucking idea at this point, but this one is delicious.

Verdict: Pretty good but very sweet.

Score: I don’t know. I give it a bunch of Stars and Bucks out of 10.