Bottled Iced Coffee Knock Off Recipe (CORRECTED)

When it comes to drinking coffee, Terry and I are complete opposites. I like mine hot, black and sometimes with a little Splenda or Equal...He loves his super sweet, cold, flavored, in lots of sugar and milk. When we go to Starbucks, he orders a Frappuccino and I prefer to order their most regular blend with a few ice cubes to drop the temp to not scalding.

Many years ago, Terry discovered the bottles of Starbucks branded bottled Frappuccino coffee drinks in the grocery store and began to buy them. I personally thought it was a rip off, considering you get four for $7-$8 and a 270 cup container of ground Folgers coffee is about the same price...But like I said, we are opposites and I like what I like and he likes what he likes. Recently, I discovered through a blog featuring reviews of products from Aldi, that Aldi had their own versions of bottled coffee drinks similar to Starbucks and only for $1.29 each. $5.16 at Aldi, the reviews seemed to have been more favorable than the Starbucks 4-pack so we tried them...He liked them. I still felt that it was a rip off though, coffee is such a cheap commodity that I don't feel a cup should cost $1.30 especially when you can make a cup of black coffee at home for around 3 cents...but that's just my opinion.

A few weeks ago, he told me before he was gonna log onto the uber app to start working for the day, he wanted coffee but had no more bottles. He was about to head down to Aldi but I told him I could make something even better...He thought I was full of shit but on my first try, I aced the challenge...He actually said that my coffee drink gave him more energy than the bottled stuff and it tasted better. The fact that I knew what the actual ingredients to mine compared to the mystery of the bottled stuff was a plus...The cost of my coffee drink compared to the Aldi version? I can safely say it was substantial...The cost of my recipe, if I did my math right, is about 30 cents...For me, it's off limits because it's NOT a zero or even low calorie drink. You're looking at about 270 calories for this entire recipe.

1 cup ice cubs
1 cup brewed coffee
2/3 cup 2% milk
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp Torani flavored Syrup (I used 1 tsp Vanilla Bean and 1 tsp Caramel and he LOVED it)

Blend all ingredients in a blender...This should be a watery consistency and not really like a milkshake. If you're looking for the consistency of an actual Starbucks in-store Frap...add a lot more ice and make sure you're coffee is super strong and is already chilled before you add it to the blender.