Is the CSL the New PSL at Starbucks?

The coffee chain’s new seasonal beverage, a Cinnamon Shortbread Latte, aims to scratch your cookie itch and deliver your caffeine buzz.

By: Amy Reiter

Starbucks has released a new winter beverage: a Cinnamon Shortbread Latte, which it’s billing on its menu as “shortbread made sippable.”

Yeah … drink in that idea and try not to drool. (So unbecoming.)

The seasonal, available-for-a-limited-time-only beverage builds on your basic brewed espresso with “buttery vanilla shortbread sauce, topped with a dusting of cinnamon and nutmeg.”

The brown butter shortbread sauce contains real butter (albeit not quite on a bulletproof-coffee scale) as well as sweetened condensed milk, sugar, water, vegetable glycerin, coconut oil, brown sugar, soy lecithin, natural flavors (whatever those are), potassium sorbate and citric acid.

A grande (16 fl oz) with whole milk clocks at 380 calories and 17 grams of total fat (11 of them saturated fat) and delivers 150mg of caffeine. A tall (12 fl oz) with nonfat milk is 220 calories and only 5 grams of total fat (3.5 grams of them saturated fat), bringing you 75mg of caffeine.

You can get the Cinnamon Shortbread Latte hot or, if the cold weather doesn’t deter you, iced or as a Frappuccino – and people on social media are buzzing about every version.

“I just tried this latte and omg I love it !!!” wrote one coffee fan commenting on a Starbucks Twitter post about the drink.

“So delicious,” another gushed.

“I loved it!!! I want to try it in a Frappuccino form!!” exclaimed a third.

Still, some people elsewhere on social media were more measured with their praise. One woman called the drink “decent, not too sweet,” while another found it overly “cinnamony.”

Some people are just tough cookies, I guess.

Photo courtesy of Starbucks

Related Links:

Recipe: Brown Sugar Shortbread

10 Coolest Coffee Drinks (and Where to Find Them)

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