The Most Expensive Drink at Starbucks

Billy Chasen of New York recently received a coupon to get any drink he wanted at Starbucks. They do this if something goes awry with a previous experience as a nice gesture.

He decided to use the coupon for an experiment: What is the most expensive drink he can order?

Luckily (or unluckily), he happens to live in Manhattan and that makes Starbucks prices expensive. Yup, they fluctuate from region to region (and even store to store). The first thing he did was call a dozen Starbucks stores around Manhattan to see who had the most expensive prices. He used his regular order of a tall soy chai to make the comparison. He figured a Starbucks in Times Square would be more expensive than where he lived on the Upper East. It’s even a cool idea itself to create a Starbucks heatmap of Manhattan.

Boringly, most Starbucks in Manhattan (no matter where located) rang his drink up at $4.23.

His next problem was he needed to find out the most expensive stuff to put in a drink. He called up his sister Lauren who happens to work at a Starbucks. She told him that he definitely needs to go with the venti white mocha and to add as many shots as possible.

He then went to Starbucks to make his drink. He told the barista that he was there as part of a contest to make the most expensive drink. She played along, trying to squeeze as much as she could into a venti cup. She thoroughly enjoyed the problem at hand (although other customers on line were getting peeved).

And the ultimate yuppified result:
A 13 shot venti soy hazelnut vanilla cinnamon white mocha with extra white mocha and caramel. It cost a total of $13.76 (with tax).

After she rang up the amount, he then presented her the coupon (which he didn’t reveal beforehand). She laughed, comped the entire drink, and he left.

At first taste, it tasted just like a shot. The 13 shots in it were just too strong. However, when he got home, he mixed it more with a spoon and it became drinkable (even enjoyable to his girlfriend). It was very sweet and he's still shaking a bit. He didn’t attempt to drink the entire thing since he like to sleep that night.

Here is a shot of the receipt (note: 2 shots come with the drink, so she only rang up 11):

And Billy wincing at first sip.

Source [anerroroccurredwhileprocessingthisdirective] via [J-Walk]