
 
 Got a friend who takes five minutes to rattle off the details of their Starbucks drink to the barista? Feel like punching them in the gut every time they do? Then you’ll be especially revolted by the latest record-setting drink at the behemoth coffee chain. 
 
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 Making use of the company’s loyalty “Gold” program, which entitles a customer to a free drink after every 12, a guy named Andrew ordered the most expensive Starbucks drink ever at $54.75; beating the purported previous record of $47.30, recorded when a customer used a Birthday coupon for the over-the-top coffee drink. The difference? Supposedly this latest concoction was actually drinkable–relying less on a mash up of expensive but unharmonious ingredients. What tipped the scales this time? A whopping 60 espresso shots (or 4.5 grams of caffeine), according to the article at Consumerist. 
 
 
 
 A call to the Starbucks corporate office to find out where this happened and maybe who the barista was yielded little more information. In fact, they said that this was the first they’d heard of it and that they were looking into the details. Based on the picture of the drink posted at Consumerist from Andrew's Twitter feed (and pictured here) Starbucks PR rep, Linda Mills, said it “looked like Dallas.” She also said that while they love their free drink program, “this type of beverage order is totally excessive and not something we encourage people to do. After they make that beverage, it’s pretty inedible. Nor is it safe,” she said, referring to the caffeine levels. 
 
 
 
 While the Consumerist article says that Andrew's barista collaborated with him on the drink and that "Everyone behind the counter seemed to be on board with the plan, and they produced the massive confection in about ten minutes," Mills claims “they don’t encourage their baristas to try” this. Why would this particular barista have wholeheartedly helped, then, and wouldn’t they get in trouble, I asked. “They get excited about that Birthday beverage,” she said, “but [in this case] had a little too much fun with it.” Mills said she did not know who the barista was. 
 
 
 
 When asked about barriers to entry, such as cup size, Mills said “there is no specific policy about bringing your own glass,” but added that she thinks their standard Starbucks large glasses would only be applicable. Yet Andrew brought in a 128-ounce glass which is certainly not your average Starbucks size cup. 
 
 It seems odd that Starbucks employees would participate in these experiments given Mills negative assessement of the situation. But based on the lack of company response to YouTube video that got over a half million hits from last year's record-setting drink, it doesn't seem like Starbucks has done anything to discourage the practice. 
 
 Mills said she would get back to me when they had more information. Until then, if you harbor any dream of beating Andrew's record, I guess you can take your chances on a renegade barista. ||||| What did you accomplish this weekend? Maybe you opened your pool, planted a garden, or took care of some pesky errands. Not Andrew. Andrew set what is, as far as we can determine, a world record for the most expensive drink possible at Starbucks. Tamping down the previous known record at $47.30 is the Sexagintuple Vanilla Bean Mocha Frappuccino at $54.75. 
 
 Update: on day 5, the drink is gone. 
 
 Andrew didn’t actually hand over that much money for his 128-ounce espresso milkshake. He’s a Gold member of Starbucks’ loyalty program, which entitles him to one free drink after every twelve that he buys. The free drink coupon entitles him to any drink available. Any drink? The only limits, it seems, were his imagination and what the baristas would let him get away with. They were game to let him get away with a lot. 
 
 For Andrew, taste was key. He had recently watched last year’s famous quadringoctuple frap video where another customer used a similar birthday coupon to assemble a 48-shot beverage with a bunch of other pricey substances in order to reach the mind-boggling $47 goal. Andrew’s goal was to break that record, and to produce something that’s drinkable. “The $47.30 guy put in two bananas, strawberry, matcha powder, pumpkin spice, and lots of other things that probably don’t go well together and definitely don’t go well with 40 shots of espresso,” Andrew told Consumerist in an e-mail. “They help raise the price, so I can’t fault him for the strategy, but I didn’t want to go that route.” 
 
 He had a secret weapon: a 128-ounce glass. Well, okay, more like a vase that you would fill with marbles or river rocks and use to decorate your house, but Starbucks considers it a glass for their purposes, unlike the other record-seekers who brought in a giant fishbowl. (We disqualify them from the single-drink record because a bunch of lattes in one fishbowl is not a single drink.) 
 
 The key step for Andrew’s world-record run was getting the baristas on his side. He walked up to the counter and laid out his goals. “So, this might sound a little weird, but I saw a video on youtube where a guy orders the most expensive Starbucks drink. I want to beat the record.” The cashier had seen the video, and through math and teamwork they figured out how to make a record-busting drink that would fit in his cup and break the record. 
 
 “It took a few minutes to figure out all the math, but in the end, it took about 55 shots to get us over the $50 line, and we just rounded it up to 60 to make it easy,” he explained to Consumerist. Everyone behind the counter seemed to be on board with the plan, and they produced the massive confection in about ten minutes. 
 
 “I gotta say, it was delicious,” Andrew declared. He reports that he drank maybe a third of it, then put the drink away for later enjoyment. 
 
 The key question you’re probably asking about this beverage: will it kill me? Well… maybe. Starbucks doesn’t publish information about how much caffeine is in a single espresso shot online, but estimates put it at about 75 milligrams per shot. If that’s the case, Andrew’s beverage would contain 4,500 milligrams (4.5 grams) of caffeine if made correctly. One expert told Popular Science that, not accounting for pre-existing medical conditions, a lethal overdose of caffeine for most adults would be about 10 grams. Large doses of the drug will still make you feel nervous and jumpy, affecting your blood pressure and heart, and you should not drink sixty shots of espresso in one sitting, ever.
– Today in the annals of First-World feats: America has a new priciest-ever Starbucks drink. The customer behind the beverage, identified as Andrew, used his loyalty card to get a free Sexagintuple Vanilla Bean Mocha Frappuccino, a concoction made with 60 shots of espresso that happens to be worth $54.75. Consumerist calls it a new record; Andrew calls it "delicious." And that, he tells Consumerist via email, was the intention. He says he was aiming to beat the record set last year: a $47.30 frap with a mere 40 shots and a long list of additives (from mocha drizzle to caramel brulee topping to strawberries) that raised the price while seriously lowering the taste. How Andrew managed the feat: He says he got the baristas at the unidentified Starbucks to agree to help him break the record, and he brought a mammoth glass to help him in that quest, a 128-ouncer. Seattle Weekly talked to a Starbucks rep who was unaware of the feat but points out that pictures from Andrew’s Twitter feed reveal his location as Dallas. "This type of beverage order is totally excessive and not something we encourage people to do," she says. "Nor is it safe." To wit, Consumerist estimates that Andrew’s drink contained 4.5 grams of caffeine, and points to a 2012 Popular Science article that suggested 10 grams of caffeine could kill an adult. Andrew says he drank about a third of his drink on site before taking the rest with him.