Doubleshot on ice vs. Iced Americano

The concept of Doubleshot™ from Starbucks isn't new, as they have came out with this a couple of years ago:
However, it wasn't available in Canada and I even wrote a note about it on facebook two years ago in search for them. When they did come out in Canada early Spring this year, the novelty had worn off for me and I never bothered getting it.

This summer Starbucks came out with a new drink called Doubleshot™ on ice. When I dropped off Adam at the airport on Wednesday, I decided that I was going to get suckered into their marketing schemes and get one to try it. The result was amazing. Even Adam, an ignoramus coffee drinker, loved it (which gave me doubts as to whether or not my taste buds have been failing me).

However, I knew from my previous search on doubleshot that it was simply two shots of espresso. In the case of doubleshot on ice, it was added with milk and syrup, so I can't seem to grasp the difference between that and my my signature drink at SB, Iced Grande Vanilla Americano with room for cream. So after a brief Q&A at SB, here's the diff.:

Both a tall "iced sweetened Americano" and "Doubleshot on ice" has two shots of espresso with two pumps of syrup. However, the Americano is generally made by pouring the espresso in a cup of ice and syrup, then adding water. The Doubleshot is made by pouring the espresso in a shaker of ice and syrup, then shakened before poured into the cup and milk is added.

So really, the doubleshot is exactly the same as how I order my Americano, except that the doubleshot on ice is:

• milky rather than creamy
• less diluted
• foamy.

Now the question is, what's the diff in price?

The tall sweetened iced Americano is:
$2.30(americano) + $0.35 (shot of syrup)+ $0.13 (5% GST) = $2.78 (then you add milk, which is free)

The tall doubleshot on ice is:
$2.65+0.13(5%GST) = $2.78

So it works out to be the same thing, except that you get it shakened with the doubleshot, which is probably worth it.

However, if you have a Registered Duetto/Starbucks Card, syrup is free, so that will bring your cost of the Americano to $2.41 after tax, which would bring to surface the dilemma of whether having it shaken and less diluted is worth the extra 35 cents.