A Grandiose Blog - Cocktails, Gadgets & More

In case you haven’t heard by now, but I’m sure you soon will - Starbucks has released a trio of coffee flavored energy drinks called Starbucks Doubleshot Energy Drinks. The flavors are French Vanilla, Mocha and Coffee and the initial response has been overall very favorable. We recently had the opportunity to sample the entire trio and let me just tell you this, these drinks are very delicious …

I’m surprised Starbucks waited this long to come out with a coffee based energy drink - this would seem like a no brainer especially given the success of other energy drinks out there such as Red Bull, Rockstar etc. The Doubleshot Energy drinks add ginseng, guarana and vitamins into the mix for a smooth, milky, sweet taste. My favorite was probably the Mocha, but again the Vanilla and Coffee are really good.

So in honor of a job well done, A Grandiose Blog has created a cocktail in honor of the new Starbucks Doubleshot Energy line - the Starbucks Doubleshot Cocktail.

• 2 oz Starbucks Doubleshot Energy Drink (coffee flavor)

• 1.5 oz Vodka (we used Zyr Vodka)

• 1 oz Milk (1% lowfat milk - hey I’m influenced by the vitamins and ginseng)

• 1/2 oz Grenadine

Shake all ingredients well in a Boston shaker filled with ice. Strain into a martini glass.

Christiania Vodka’s trademark is “The World’s Smoothest Vodka”. We had a chance to review a bottle of the spirit and we came to the conclusion that Christiania Vodka is anything but the world’s smoothest vodka. Actually we found it quite nasty.

There are a number of better vodka’s which we have had the opportunity to review here and consider quite superior to Christiania Vodka - Trump Vodka, Zyr Vodka, heck even bargain priced Sobieski Vodka is waaaay better than Christiania.

Christiania has a great story, and a really good marketing campaign - but all that does not make a great vodka. We found Christiania Vodka a bit too strong and harsh, especially for a six time distilled potato based spirit. Potato based vodka’s are supposed to be the smoothest of the smooth, and if you ever have the opportunity compare Christiania Vodka to another potato based spirit - Trump Vodka.

In my opinion, Christiania Vodka represents everything I dislike about vodka - an average product trying to brainwash consumers with a slick marketing campaign. This review might be a bit harsh but this is my personal opinion. There are some who seem to like Christiania Vodka - but I’ll let you be the judge. In the meantime somebody please pass me a bottle of Zyr Vodka ….

Let’s see, there hasn’t been a vodka review or a post about vodka period ever since Gabriel from Cocktailnerd did a guest post. I haven’t posted anything here in awhile, mostly because I’ve been extremely busy hanging out with the Search Engine Optimization and Affiliate Marketing crowd, which resulted in the creation of Selfpreneurs.com. Selfpreneurs has been a great success for me in it’s very short existence because it has led to a couple of consulting projects for a few small business owners. As much as I love blogging about cocktails, it is a very expensive habit to maintain.

So imagine my surprise when I was contacted by the folks at Imperial Brands who wanted to know if I’d like to review their new product, Sobieski Vodka. Vodka?! Regular readers of my blog already know that Gin reigns supreme here, and most a lot of the mixologists I run with in the mixosphere share a dim view on vodka. However after sampling Sobieski Vodka I realized …

To read the rest of this review, please visit us at the soon to be new home of Agrandioseblog - Tastemakers Blogazine.

Click here to Subscribe to my RSS Feed and be the first to learn about new stuff as soon as it’s posted. You will also have access to exclusive content we don’t post on the site. Thanks for visiting!Today’s topic, Gin - is a big favorite around here and you can read this previous post [...]

Welcome to another edition of Recap Sundays - a recap of grandiose posts from other blogs in the Mixosphere.

Gabriel at cocktailnerd reviews a book, “How’s your Drink?” by Eric Felton and gives it four stars out of five
The Good Doctor pairs a Martini with Celery & Stilton soup. Is that a new logo [...]

MSN.com has a series of really good articles I think are worth taking a look at:

5 overrated Cocktails
10 things your Bartender won’t tell you
5 Cocktails that deserve a comeback
8 tips for learning what you like and ordering it right

Solid.