Burnt Cinnamon Milk

So the thing with about 90% of Starbucks hot drinks, in my opinion, is that they all taste like burnt milk. We can talk more about that later. Starbucks in a desperate attempt to roll out something new has tossed this on the wall to bridge the gap between Christmas drinks and the Pumpkin Spice Latte.

Starbucks very generous description for this new item is “Rich espresso with buttery vanilla shortbread sauce, topped with a dusting of cinnamon and nutmeg. It’s shortbread made sippable.”. Hey that sounds great, IF IT WERE TRUE. And just so you know that I am not a cold soulless Starbucks hater, I actually love the Pumpkin Spice Latte and many other seasonal Starbucks drinks.

Taste the Blandness

Lets get down to it then, I give you the Starbucks Cinnamon Shortbread Latte Review. My first sip was, as always, ridiculously hot and tasted like burning with a hint of cinnamon. After letting it cool for a bit I took a few more sips and I gotta say, this drink is incredibly bland. I mean normally these seasonal drinks at least have enough sugar and artificial flavor to cover up the burnt milk and cheap espresso but not this time. What we have here my friends, is burnt cinnamon milk.

Needs More Sugar?

So at this point I am pretty bummed, I was really hoping this thing would be good but there is not a single redeeming quality here. Maybe the frappucino is better? It tastes like nothing mostly. It tastes like bland milk that is being haunted by cinnamon. With how unhealthy this thing is I cannot believe it doesn’t taste better, or AT LEAST ins’t just a sugary mess in my mouth. Ya failed on this one Starbucks. YA BASIC. I mean look at this label:

Not Quite a PSL

According to Food & Wine magazine this was supposed to be as big at the Pumpkin Spice Latte, Starbucks is even trying to push the #CSL hashtag on twitter. A quick search on twitter for that hash tag yields almost nothing to do with this drink. I really had to dig deep for these.

@Starbucks #CSL Cinnamon shortbread latte tastes like an overbaked burnt coffee cake. Just go for cinnamon vanilla next time

— Gena (@genaleigh3) January 13, 2019

Not impressed with the #CSL @Starbucks

— x kelly x (@kellyxcore) January 11, 2019

It is also being described as having “notes of brown butter” ??? I’m sorry I didn’t see my barista back there sautéing up a stick of butter until it browned and then pouring it in to my drink but maybe I missed something? Thats like saying your Mountain Dew has notes of Tahitian Limes and Meyer Lemons. Don’t try and trick us in to thinking it’s anything but a chemical goo you are pouring in to the drink. Honestly if someone gave me the choice between a Starbucks Cinnamon Shortbread Latte and a can of Crab Juice I would choose the latter.

So yeah, in case you couldn’t tell I didn’t really like this drink. What are your thoughts on it?