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I was a late bloomer when it came to coffee. Senior year of college, Caribou's Campfire Mocha frappuccino became the sweet, sweet gateway that led me to experiment with Starbucks' vanilla lattes. I then ventured into sugar-soaked coffees and, eventually, the just black coffee with milk that I drink today.
But Milk Bar's new lattes are bringing me back to those campfire days. The dessert spot's three new flavors—Crack Pie, Cereal Milk and B'day—are influenced by their popular non-liquid treats.
Of course, if you take your coffee black or your espressos doubled, you should stop reading now.
Latte fans, however, will find some kinship with the Cereal Milk option (espresso with steamed cereal milk), a savorier, creamier option that's anodyne enough for any coffee drinker.
But if you're looking for warm, melted down milkshakes with some espresso? Go for the other two.
Once you get past the initial flush of sprinkles on top the B'day latte (birthday crumbs, syrup and yellow cake flavor) it does turn into a surprisingly pleasant and balanced funfetti concoction good for an afternoon pick-me-up or an impulse-cookie substitute.
But, uh, the Crack Pie (dark brown sugar, corn ganache, espresso, steamed milk)...not so much. The first sip is tasty enough with a buttery, caramel flavor. But then the flavor and consistency gets weirder and weirder the longer it sits. The corn ganache must have congealed and molded into floating (corn?) flakes and chunks that infiltrate every sip and imbue the drink with a synthetic, syrupy sweetness that can't help but shift the meaning of the name from something so addictively good [crack!] to something that might ruin your whole existence.
So in this case, please just stick with the pie or the drug. Because when melted into a latte, crack is pretty damn wack.
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