Excavations of Claymore: The Kyle Lincoln

As you can see in this picture, Mr. Lincoln put his best foot forward with the yellow tux, stripey tie and backwards "K." By no stretch of the imagination am I being facetious. The Kyle Lincoln is truly the coffee of yellow-tuxedoed super heroes everywhere, and if it's not, well, that would explain why we haven't heard much from the masked men of the skies lately.

You all know that I don't hand out five-star ratings like free t-shirts at Go-Co, but for the second week in a row, I am totally floored by the Claymore drink of the week. My figurative jaw is on the ground (but I made sure to keep my literal jaw shut so the delicious coffee wouldn't spill out. 'Twould have been most uncouth).

It's hard to put my taste buds on what was so extraordinary about this blend of chocolate, English toffee and Irish creme, and I think that's why it was so good. They say the human eye prefers an average face - that is, one of perfect symmetry, balance and proportion. The same must be true of flavors.

You may, in some vaguely recalled high school science class, have seen a diagram of the tongue delineating the different taste regions. This theory was actually debunked before any of us were in high school, even my "grown-up" readers - it's based on a mis-translation of something originally written in German and was corrected early last century. However, I have noticed that different parts of my tongue taste different kinds of flavor more strongly. One of the amazingly average features of the Kyle Lincoln... wow, how to make this not awkward since the drink has a person's name... well, scientifically speaking, it stimulates all of the taste regions, which makes my tongue (non-scientifically) very happy.

There was no one overwhelming element. The drink was not too sweet, not too bitter, not too fruity or too dark or too artificial. I believe I said the same for the Irish Dream, which leads me to believe that Irish creme must simply be the perfect mate to coffee. The Sam Gamgee or Robin or Ron Weasley of flavor shots. You think Frodo or Batman or Harry Potter would've been anyone without their sidekicks? Heck to the no. They would've been effed. We would live in a world ruled collectively by Sauron, the Joker and Lord Voldemort if not for these unsung heroes.

The moral of the story is that you should definitely give this drink a try. I think it will please all kinds of coffee-lovers, whether their preference is sweet or earthy... and it may also give you superpowers.

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Next week I'll be sampling the Orange Real courtesy of my barista friend Kenya, author of the Orange Real experience. After that, I'll only be here three more weeks before summer starts! I shall truly miss my Claymore reviews. I may even go into withdrawal. The sad truth is that this experiment seems to have developed into an addiction. I drink coffee like three times a week now and it's the first thing I want when I start yawning. I mean, thank goodness it was just coffee and not cocaine, but a summer off will probably do me good.... me, and my wallet.