OK, I have had some seriously bad coffee on road trips over the years, but never in my life as a coffee drinker have I had anything as strangely disgusting as the latest Starbucks canned coffee beverage…the Doubleshot Energy + Coffee. Yikes!
It was late Wednesday night, the day before Thanksgiving and after crawling up Highway 5 from Los Angeles, we stopped for gas as we always do at our favorite truck stop/gas station in Gustine. Knowing that we might hit more horrendous traffic over Hecker Pass and beyond on our last leg to Santa Cruz, I decided I’d better caffeine it up a bit.
So, rather than get some of the truck stop’s notoriously awful hot coffee, I opted for a Starbucks canned coffee instead. Normally I would get the Starbucks Doubleshot, which is very small and very expensive — I’ve seen it for as much as $3.99 in some places! — but totally worth the price, because aside from giving you just the right jolt, that shit is pretty tasty.
However, this time I saw something new in that refrigerated section…shiny, gigantic cans of something called Starbucks Doubleshot Energy + Coffee. It even came in three flavors: Mocha, Coffee, and Vanilla. Cool! Twice the size of the traditional Doubleshot and fifty cents cheaper with Guarana, Ginseng and B Vitamins to boot, how could I not try this thing? So, I grabbed myself a Coffee flavored can of Energy + Coffee goodness and headed to the register. And that, amigos, was my first deadly mistake…
This drink was bad. Really, really bad. I’m not a fan of energy drinks in general and this crap tasted like the worst energy drink you ever had combined with the worst day-old coffee you ever had and a buttload of sugar. Seriously, I gagged on my first sip…it was hideous.
Of course, having already slapped down my cold hard cash, I drank the whole thing. Yes, I am that cheap, and after almost eight hours on the road, I needed a pick-me up regardless of the taste. So, what are you gonna do?
In hindsight, what I should have done was stopped drinking immediately. By my third sip I had the rumblings of some serious coffee stomach, and by the time we reached Gilroy a half hour or so later, I felt like my heart was gonna explode. It didn’t help that Christine kept laughing at me for cheaping out and going large instead of sticking to a drink I knew and trusted. Urgh…what a disaster.
So, I guess the moral of the story is to stick with what you know on road trips, and for the love of God, stear clear of this toxic Starbucks concoction! Yuck…
make. see. eat. do. 