Half Price Frappuccinos during Happy Hour at Starbucks

On a hot day, you can expect to walk into a Starbucks and see a line of thirsty visitors waiting to order their favorite Frappuccino. From now through May 16th, you can expect to see a line of Frappuccino fans regardless of what the weather is like outside because Starbucks is hosting a Happy Hour from 3-5pm on those dates, where all Frappuccinos are half price. This is a pretty amazing deal if you like the blended drinks – especially if you happen to live somewhere that it is feeling like summertime already.
The happy hour special is good on all Frappuccinos, not just the new summer drinks, but if you’re up for giving one of them a try, I’ll recommend the Coconut Mocha!

Coffee Joulies

Insulated cups are the standard for keeping your hot drinks hot and you cold drinks cold. They generally work very well, letting you sip your caffeinated drinks at your desk all morning without forcing you to jump up to reheat. But even insulated mugs don’t keep your drinks at the same perfect temperature for hours. Hot drinks gradually lose their edge as they sit and, if you’re like most people, you’ll eventually head to the pot to top off your coffee. That is where Coffee Joulies come in. This idea was posted as a project on Kickstarter, a food-safe “thermodynamic heat storage device” that looks like a coffee bean. Pop one of these into your mug and it will bring it down to a drinkable temperature 3x faster than usual and will keep it there 2x as long. These work particularly well when they’re used in conjunction with an insulated mug, as you get the benefits of both heat-saving devices. Of course, if you’re an espresso drinker you’re not going to really reap the benefits of this little bean, but if you like to sip your tea or coffee, this is one little gadget worth adding to your collection.

Coffee Float

A root beer float is one of my favorite summertime treats. The combination of cold and sweet ice cream with fizzy, spicy root beer is a winner every time. Coffee drinks usually take on a blended form in the summer, but the “float” concept works extremely well with coffee and is right up there with the root beer version for me.

This drink starts with two scoops of good quality vanilla ice cream in a nice, big glass. The better your ice cream, the better your drink is going to be (in other words, save the lower fat stuff for another time). Fill the glass about halfway up with cold milk, then fill it up to the top with chilled black, coffee. Give everything a little stir with a straw and then enjoy. The ice cream adds all the sweetness that your coffee will need and will still keep the drink very refreshing. You don’t need to add any milk and could use all coffee if you really wanted to, but adding that milk highlights the creaminess of the ice cream wonderfully.

This could be a dessert drink, but it is something that I usually prefer to enjoy on a lazy weekend afternoon when I’m sitting outside enjoying the summer weather. I always prefer to use vanilla ice cream (it’s a classic for a float!), but chocolate actually works just as well in this type of drink.

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