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Starbucks Doubleshot Energy + Coffee – Drink Review

Starbucks Doubleshot Energy + Coffee, Mocha and Vanilla

Oh, Starbucks, what have you done? This is their new coffee energy beverage. I snagged both the mocha and the vanilla flavored variations. They sport guarana (90mg), ginseng (325mg) and B vitamins (200% of your B6 RDA and 100% of your B12 RDA). No word about how much caffeine on the can, but Energy Fiend (the authority on such matters), tells us that 225mg 146mg awaits you in each one.

Trouble is, they taste like ass.

How to describe the experience of trying to drink these things to you…

Let’s see: imagine you’ve tried to laminate the inside of your mouth and throat with a terrible plastic that tastes of sweet chemicals. Nay, not tried. Succeeded. You sip and you think surely, surely this can’t be right. And it’s not. Because when I say laminate, I mean you’re going to be stuck with this dreadful fake taste in your mouth for a while afterwards. Best of luck with that.

[ad#longpost]Where is the problem, exactly? Well, looking at the ingredients list I can only assume it’s my archenemy, sucralose. Both flavors have it and as a result the things are pretty much undrinkable. The mocha variation is like somebody took their normal mocha frappacino drink and…well, added fake sugar. And the vanilla is overpowered by the fake sugar where I’m hard pressed to tell the difference between the two.

This is extraordinarily disappointing. If you could see inside those cans, you’d see they were almost completely full. I lasted three sips with one and two sips with the other, and long time readers know that I’ll torture my taste buds with almost anything if there’s buzz to be had. But these are going right down the drain. I’d call them vile but that would be an insult to vile things. Avoid them until they get real sugar or somebody figures out how to disguise the taste better.

12 comments

  • Jay: Apparently Energy Fiend has updated their list, so thank you for the headsup. As for your second question, why are you so interested in knowing?

  • That must be an interesting way to go through life. Stay away from ScottC, you’ll find yourself asking all kinds of things.

  • I have to blame 25 years of supervising a Quality Control Department for the curiosity. And who is ScottC? (More QC curiosity)

  • Yes! The first time I tried one of these.. A few years ago, I almost threw up!! Fake sugar is right, and whatever they used for the creamy taste also cannot be real. I chugged the drink back with my nose plugged.. If the taste was bearable, it would be perfect.. I hate having to drink a gallon of monster just for the energy.. Never again, gross!

  • Lauren: Why can’t we just have straight up black coffee in a can? Or even straight espresso? To my knowledge–and I get the beverage industry magazine with new product updates–it still isn’t out there. Is that so freaking hard?

    Thanks for the comment.