Annie Jo’s “Cups of Cheer”

As shocking as it may sound, I’ve never tried the Starbucks Holiday drinks. I know I know I can see how that can be surprising to some, but I’ve seen the constant commercials every holiday season and just have never made an effort to try any of them. I know there is a lot of hype over them, so I finally wanted to try the three featured drinks and see what the hype really was all about.

The three featured drinks that I tried was the Toasted White Chocolate Mocha, the Caramel Brulée Latte, and the Peppermint Mocha. My absolute favorite was the Toasted White Chocolate. It had four pump of Toasted White Chocolate Mocha Sauce, two shots of espresso, and was topped with holiday sugar sparkles with whipped cream. I like coffee, but nothing too strong, and I thought it was the perfect mix of both sweet and bitter coffee and I could easily drink this all season long. 10 out of 10 rating for me.

My second favorite was the Caramel Brulée Latte. It was so sweet and almost too sweet to where it was over powering to the coffee taste; it really just tasted like straight caramel syrup. The drink had four pumps of caramel brulée sauce, two shots of espresso, and topped with caramel brulée topping with Whipped Cream. The more I drank it the better it got and it wasn’t bad after a while, but it’s safe to say I won’t be purchasing this drink on my own again. 6 out of 10 rating for me.

The final drink and the one that was my least favorite was the Peppermint Mocha. It included two pumps Peppermint Syrup, two pumps of mocha sauce, one shot of espresso, and was topped with chocolate curls with whipped cream. I like to think of the Peppermint mocha as the Pumpkin spice of the holiday season; no one really likes it, but they only drink it because it’s a part of the season. I mean really, I thought this just tasted like I had spit out a piece of mint gum and drank coffee after. I can see how one may order this during the holidays, but if you were to want this outside of Christmas time… you’re crazy. 4 out of 10 rating for me.

Overall, I thought all the drinks were pretty alright, the Toasted White Chocolate was to die for though I will say. The other ones, they only got better as I continued to drink it, but I don’t think I would ever spend my own money on those two again. I could stand the Caramel Brulée, but it’s a big no thanks to the Peppermint mocha.

Now that I have tried the three featured holiday drinks from Starbucks, I won’t have to be confused on the hype; I know understand the hype is because each drink tastes like Christmas in a cup and overall, were pretty good.