Iced CofFree

Dunkin' Donuts touted yesterday as "Free Iced Coffee Day." Stop in from 10 AM to 10 PM and get a free iced coffee. (Limit one per customer)

Iced coffee is a funny drink. Not funny like a shaken bottle of Sprite, where the carbonation bubbles up to your sinuses and makes you snort. Funny as in odd, -- peculiar.

It's marketed as something to drink on hot days, and is essentially a way for coffee-selling businesses to stay open during the warm summer months. And it does have refreshing qualities. Yet coffee is a diuretic, which generally causes a net loss of water because it forces more frequent runs to the lavatory.

So how can something that causes dehydration be refreshing in the middle of a sunny afternoon, when sweat runs thick and people need transfusions of H2O? Iced teas faces this same problem. When it's hot, people need to be putting more water into their bodies, not forcing it out.

Paradox is the only way to describe it. So let's accept that and move on to investigate the nuances of the drink.

First, it tastes much better with cream than skim milk. Sorry weight watchers, but a drink with an almost-caramel color needs to have some thickness to it. Milkshake consistency isn't required, but skim just doesn't give enough oomph.

Second, don't go overboard on the sugar. The beauty of coffee is its bitterness wrapped around rich tones. Pouring in sweetness only ravages the taste and makes it more common. If you want to drink something sugary, just go buy a Sprite. Maybe you can shake it up to simulate iced coffee's funniness.

Three-and-a-half sporks out of five for the paradoxical cup of joe. If it's free iced coffee day, make it a full four sporks. Just don't go back for too many free cups. You might dehydrate.