Today the SO and I had both the Gingersnap and salted caramel hot chocolate on these recommendations, both are very very good! I liked the hot chocolate best, agreed that the Gingersnap doesn’t taste quite as full as the Gingerbread of last year, next time have to ask for whole milk. I love the Dope!
Oh how right you are! Finally got a chance to try “one last time” with the special whole milk / no candied ginger boogers instructions – and that is the drink I remember from last year. Thank you.
-rainy
Whenever fall’s over I miss the pumpkin latte. I started watching what I eat a few months ago because of my health, so when I looked up the nutritional information on that Hot Chocolate, I had to gasp. A short is 320 calories, which would have to be my total breakfast, and I love eggs too much for that.
They kept the Pumpkin Spice Latte on the holiday menu this year near me.
I’ve also see a Toasted Marshmallow Latte on the menu but only at Barnes & Noble Starbucks locations.
Oh good, I’m so glad you got the drink you wanted!
And I also have to say that this thread is evil, because the comments above convinced me to try the Salted Carmel hot chocolate. Holy crap, that stuff is like crack, I can’t stop drinking it! AND I have since learned that the Espresso Truffle drink is basically the specialty hot chocolate with espresso in it. YUM.
LA LA LA I DON’T HEAR ANYTHING ABOUT 320 CALORIES LA LA LA
So this morning I was really enjoying my home brewed cup of Starbuck’s Holiday blend and was thinking that despite what many people say Starbucks sells good beans. I checked the bag to see what was in it and then saw I had bought Peets. 
Damn good coffee!
This thread prompted me to try the Salted Caramel and all of the fall flavors. So far my favorite has been the Pumpkin Spice Latte. Salted Caramel was by far the worst. It wasn’t a surprise though, I hate salt. The truffle one was pretty good too, if not a little too truffly. Only one left to try has apple in it’s name.
SO jealous. :eek:
I’m drinking one right now 
I want to know whjy they switched to Egg Nog syrup and not actual nog itself. the syrup is a poor substitute and has caused me to not order any further of said beverage.
That’s what that stuff was called! I went last night looking for it, since I’d heard it’s like drinking a chocolate bar. I got some other hot chocolate. It wasn’t the salted or the signature, and it was sorta yucky.
Also, for those of you who miss the Pumpkin lattes, try a local espresso joint. At mine, we’ve still got it around.
I tried the salted caramel hot chocolate based on this thread. Gak! It was so syrupy, so cloyingly sweet that my mouth practically turned inside out. And also, what salt? It tasted like a fairly standard turtle hot chocolate, and would have been better served with about 1/5 the amount of syrups. Bleagh. (And I like sweet stuff, especially chocolate.)
Pumpkin Spice and Gingerbread are basic Torino syrups – my neighborhood coffee shop has both, and IIRC they have Gingerbread year-round.
Although now I really want to make a trip to Vosges for a glass of drinking chocolate. Mmmmm…
They do actually salt the Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate with sea salt, but it’s only a sprinkle, which serves to intensify the flavors, not make them salty.
Only, I’ve just moved out to California, and from El Paso west, it tastes different, definitely sweeter - too sweet. Maybe my old baristas just knew to make it with whole milk? I hope that’s it, because I don’t want to give it up.
Mr Gazer says that Starbucks hasn’t switched to egg nog syrup - they still use real egg nog (well, not the boozy kind, of course). He does have a caveat, though – the Starbucks counters in Safeway stores, airports, etc., are not “real” Starbucks and may have different standards.