Chestnut Praline Latte: What am I doing with my life?

Lots of people (and by lots of people, I mean pretty much no one) ask me how long I plan to do this blog. I know from experience not to have overly ambitious goals in this regard.

I first learned my lesson back in high school, when I tried out for the football team in tenth grade.  After try-outs the coach approached me and said, "Sorry, Kid, but you just don't have it."  When I asked the coach for clarification about what he meant exactly by 'it', he explained that it was a combination of things, including basic hand-eye coordination, reasonable genetics, not possessing a crippling fear of bees, the ability to not giggle upon hearing the word 'buttocks', and just general athletic ability.

I was crushed, but if one positive thing came out of that moment, I learned that sometimes one has to put in some real work to achieve one's goals. I then decided I would train every day over summer holidays and make it onto the team next year. People laughed at me, and told me it would never happen---and in retrospect I should really commend those people for their accurate take on the situation, because I'm actually legitimately terrible at football. But how could I have known that at the time?  

So, yeah, I've learned some lessons the hard way and have come to realize that we inhabit a cruel and unforgiving universe---ruled by chaos and despair---which will only crush your dreams and ultimately discard you like the napkin used to wipe the sweat off a lumberjack's brow.  

So I don't have serious goals for this blog, but I did set one goal when I started: to write twenty posts.  After that, I can reevaluate things or take a break or maybe just blog once a week.  I'm flexible. Besides, my student told me that vlogging is the new blogging, so perhaps I'm behind the times and should invest in a camera.

With all that in mind, we take one step closer to my goal with a review of the Chestnut Praline Latte. The CPL is perhaps Starbucks' signature holiday drink, and it might one day achieve equal footing with the now mythical Pumpkin Spice Latte. The drink is a straightforward latte with some chestnut syrup, but what really makes it delicious is the added whipped cream and the crunchy topping that is subsequently sprinkled onto the drink.  I asked the manager what this crunchy stuff was, and he read off a list of things---I think one of them was cloves or something.  (That's the sort of hard-hitting research I'm willing to do for this blog, gentle reader.)  In any case, it's delicious. The chestnut flavor of the latte strikes me as more of a novelty---kind of a throwback to that old-timey song where that guy is talking about chestnuts roasting by an open fire and Jack Frost nipping at your nose. In practice, you hardly ever see some guy roasting chestnuts by an open fire, and I assume that's because chestnuts are kind of gross, which is unfortunately the case with the latte part of the drink.  

But for the first few sips, the whipped cream and crunchy topping flavors dominate the chestnut flavor and the initial experience is fantastic. I'd say that just having a latte with the crunchy stuff sprinkled on top would be awesome. But overall I'm nonplussed by this drink---it has some positive features, but the chestnut flavor is a miss for me.  Still, it is very popular and it is certainly worth a try.

Verdict: Interesting drink; delicious topping.

Score: 5 Stars and 4 bucks out of 10.