Being on a “diet” during the Holidays FUCKING SUCKS.

It’s like a crime against nature or something. (For the record, I’m not on a “diet”, I’m on a general eating plan of “no bullshit”)

You read that right. I believe it is a part of human nature to eat themed treats and drink themed libations during the season of seasons (and that ain’t baseball). And by not doing so, I feel I am going against nature and may possibly incur the wrath of some pissed-off Holiday Treat god/Mother Nature somewhere.

It may have nothing to do with Christmas. It may just be that we are, somewhere, related to bears and that we have a need, deep down, to fatten up before winter really gets down to bidness.

Whatever the reason is, when I went into the local Swanky Grocery Store the other day and saw their elaborate holiday displays, I nearly went out of my mind while trying to resist the goodies. I had to make my escape.

I beat it outta there and when I got outside, instead of feeling like Rocky for beating my temptations into submission, I felt like I had done something wrong, and that punishment for this crime was imminent. I attribute this to the Holiday Treat gods being pissed at me.

I had to appease these gods, my own mortal soul and holiday season were at stake!

But how does a person who is watching what they eat, appease gods whose sole purpose in the universe is to tempt you with themed treats???

Christmas-Themed Coffee!!!!

I want you to know, straight away, that I’m not going to review a bunch of holiday-themed consumer goods this holiday season. If you want that, and you want it done right, I suggest you head on over to Mattdog’s site.

That’s not our bag over here at the FFDC zone (though, if it comes to it, and I’m at a loss for something to post about, I’ll write about anything. just to be clear).

Themed Coffee “fits” here because it is something that you can consume that is,

1. Holiday Themed, for the gods’ maximum pleasure.

2. Not fattening, unless you do the “add-ons”.

I don’t know how many calories are in black coffee, even flavored coffees, but it can’t be a lot. It’s just water, filtered through demolished, roasted, beans. Bean water, right? No way that can be fattnin’.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be just like my dad, just like every good boy does fine. My dad, having given up the drink and was currently in the process of giving up the smoke (dad’s been smoke-free for like 25 years now! Go dad!), dranks loads of coffee. To this day, he drinks coffee all day and all of the night. He was also a railroad man, and any railroad man worth his weight in spikes drinks coffee like Juan Valdez is going to burn all the coffee plantations tomorrow.

Being as I wanted to be just like him, I wanted to drink coffee. He gave me a cup of coffee, and I went to put cream and sugar in it…

“No, no, boy. Your mother does that.”

This was a clear indication that only girls put cream and sugar in coffee. Not big manly men like us!

And that was that. I’ve been drinking my coffee black ever since and, as my dad has said many times, “If you drink your coffee black, you can drink coffee anywhere.” Which I have found to be true in my many travels throughout the years.

So I like coffee. I like it black. And, normally, I don’t like it “flavored”. Not because I don’t think it’s manly, but most of the time, the flavors don’t really stand out too much and just plain taste bad, to me.

Remember that as you read these two reviews of my compromise on the Holiday Treats: Dunkin Donuts Holiday Coffees.

Here are the coffees in question (there may be other Xmas blends out there, I don’t know):

This is the bag of Mocha Mint Dunkin Donuts coffee:

 

This is what it looks like brewed:

 

This is the bag of Dunkin Donuts Vanilla Nut Coffee:

 

And this is what it looks like brewed:

 

Let me say a quick word about Dunkin Donuts: fuck ’em. Fuck em up and down and in their face.

Why? Because this is die hard Krispy Kreme Country, bitch!!!!! Dunkin Donuts are yankee donuts, no doubt about it. Sorta like when someone told me that Moon Pies were “Whoopie” Pies. Whoopie deez nutzzzz. They’re Moon Pies.

And while I definitely do not hate the Double D (I make sure to visit a location at least once while in the Northeast) as much as I made it sound like for a second there, I definitely feel a bit of loyalty to the Double K. If you’ve never been to the Northeast, let me tell you that the Double D is freakin everywhere. You think you have a lot of Starbucks? You haven’t seen shit until you’ve seen FOUR Dunkins in ONE square block. I’m not kidding. I have seen that.

Suffice it to say, if KK had a Christmas line of coffees, I’d be reviewing them here, not DD. No offense, DD. (although if you are a big DD fan/employee, you probably quit reading midway through the “eff em up and down and in their face” line)

Mocha Mint:

This is the first of the two that I bought, because it was on sale at Target (and if you just pronounced that in your head “the French way”, you know what I mean, then go shoot yourself now and do us all a favor). On sale, this stuff was right around $7. My usual brand, Maxwell House Original, goes for about $5, when it’s not on sale for less. I noticed that, normally, the DD coffee is around $10. Outrageous. Yankee prices for yankee coffee, I guess.

This one is better than the Vanilla Nut, I’ll give it that. In fact, this one, like almost all coffees (as Johnny Tremain found out) smells like heaven, but tastes like well…. not hell, exactly… but vaguely minty regular coffee. I honestly could not taste any mocha (that’s chocolate right? why can’t they just call it “chocolate mint”? I guess the DD is gettin all uppity on us, forgetting that they have locations inside gas stations).

It smelled really good when I opened the bag, and while brewing, but in the cup it just tastes… I dunno. Not worth $10/bag, that’s for damn sure. Locally, we have “Community” coffee. It is better and a bit cheaper, especially their “coffee & chicory” blend. But like I said earlier, I don’t normally go for the flavored coffees anyway, but how was I supposed to resist that cheery snowman on the front??? There was no resisting that. I don’t want to type that it was futile, but I guess I just did.

Vanilla Nut:

This is actually what I’m drinking right now.

“What’s the deal with Grape Nuts? No grapes, no nuts, what’s the deal???”

Sorta like that. No vanilla, no nuts, what’s the deal.

This stuff smelled good in the bag (once again, I haven’t found a coffee yet that didn’t smell totally cowabunga when you opened the bag), but not really too much like what I would picture “Vanilla Nut” to smell like.

I guess DD is following the “Chock Full o Nuts” business model of: “say nuts in the title, but it’s just regular coffee.”

The flavor of Vanilla Nut doesn’t really shine through like I want it to. I love Vanilla, it’s probably my favorite flavor, because I’m kind of a boring sort of guy, but I’m wondering what kind of “nut” flavor I’m s’posed to be experiencing here. Cashew nut? Wall Nut? Pecan Nut? Pea Nut? Macadamia Nut? Ok, I’ll quit naming nuts.

In Summation:

I haven’t really changed my mind that I don’t care for flavored coffees, but I feel like the Holiday Theme gods have been satisfied and can go back to resting on their holly thrones (ouch!) and leave me the eff alone.

I guess that, maybe, you’re not supposed to drink these coffees “black”. But if you hafta add “vanilla flavoring” to “Vanilla Nut” coffee, doesn’t that kinda defeat the purpose? If the flavors do not come out on their own, then the coffee (or Scotch or whatever) has failed, in my mind.

But maybe my palate is not refined enough to appreciate good coffee, which is really a good thing because this shit is ‘spensive.