DV Product Review: Starbucks Doubleshot Energy + Coffee Drink

I'd love to tell you the Starbucks doubleshot Energy + Coffee drink is a "must have" for energy drink and coffee fans. But then I'd be a huge lying cunt.

The fact of the matter is, I'd much rather drink either regular Starbucks coffee or a regular energy drink. I think that's a no brainer. Outside of a few rare exceptions (like threesomes and an "Avengers" movie), putting things you like together heeds something you won't like. Adam Sandler? Hilarious. Robert Smigel? A genius. Judd Apatow? The funniest director working today. An Adam Sandler movie written by Robert Smigel and Judd Apatow? People would rather mess with a panda than the Zohan. 

You get the idea. Starbucks, didn't, however, and rolled out their Energy + Coffee line anyways.

So far, the drink comes in three flavors: Coffee (oh snap, coffee flavored coffee), Mocha and Vanilla. According to other reviews out there on the 'nets, the coffee flavor is the best one available. Which is why it was pretty stupid for Starbucks to forget to send me that flavor. They sent me two mochas and a vanilla instead.

Now, I'm the perfect person to try out this drink for a few reasons. Unlike most slave laborers in the internet/technology field, I'm not a caffeine addict. I actually never "regularly" drank coffee for any significant span of time until a few months ago and I've since kicked the habit. I had to. Thanks to my virginal veins, coffee (and energy drinks) affects me like crack affects most people (outside of my mom and Tatum O'Neal). One coffee drunk at noon will keep me up until 4 AM. Two coffees, spread out in the middle of the day, will have me begging to Heath Ledger myself by the time 7 AM rolls by. Hell, a can of coke fucks me up. I can hold my liquor. My caffeine is a different story.

And here's the point where you expect me to say something like "but the Starbucks doubleshot Energy+Coffee drink barely kept me up two hours!" Well, that's fucking gay of you to be thinking that. I'm not that cliched. This Starbucks shit, if nothing else, has an ass load of caffeine in it. It's a mega 16 ounce can (as opposed to Red Bull's 8.3 ounces and a can of coke's 12 ounces). So if you drink your entire horse cock-sized Energy+Coffee drink, you will be tripping balls for hours (conflicting reports on the net place the drink's caffeine content somewhere between 225 and 146 mg, which blows a can of Coke's 34 mg out of the fucking brown colored water).

 

 

But the problem is, this swill tastes so bad, you'll never even get close to drinking the whole can. I attempted to drink the mocha over some ice (as the can suggests) the day I received the package from Starbucks. I dented about 10% of the can before I had to dump the rest down the drain (the shower drain to be exact, which is where I dump all my unfinished energy drinks).

 

The next day, which was this last Friday, I was insanely swamped with work (especially with my side hustle as a high powered criminal defense attorney) so I was actually in dire need of a "kick." I had put the vanilla and remaining mocha drinks in the fridge, thinking perhaps the ice I added to the previous mocha Energy+Coffee might've thrown the flavor off.

No.

In fact, watering down the swill had aided the flavor. Innumerably. The vanilla and remaining mocha drinks were sampled and dumped after a couple sips each.

Apparently there a couple of dranks that already crowd this coffee flavored energy drink category that are actually good... the Frappio and the Shock Triple Latte both being apparent stand outs. Maybe these guys will send me their product to sample (wink wink).

I will say, I was somewhat buzzed off the 10% of the mocha I drank on the very first day. And unlike these hyper-caffinated fringe drinks, the Starbucks doubleshot Energy+Coffee is readily available in a store near you. So if you're in the market for a horrible tasting but somewhat powerful energy drink/coffee blend, this will be your shit this summer.

Now all that being said, Starbucks are pretty cool. They sent me the drinks in a cool poster tube (which is now housing an old New Kids On The Block poster that was in desperate need of tubage for months) and like I said free shit is cool.

Here are some pointers, though. #1) If your product has three flavors and there's a clear "best" flavor, make sure you send that one out to people reviewing your product. And #2) if you had put a couple Andrew Jacksons in the poster tube with the drinks, you'd be reading a very different review right now wink wink. (wink wink means please bribe)