**French Vanilla (Sterling Cloud) 2.5/3.5% (8-17-23)** -- With French Vanillas it's ALL about the egg. Egg YOLKS that is, and YES, they WERE in this flavor. As always, I have to temper my expectations, as FV's are not Custards LOL. I started this one off at 2.5%, and moved it up to 3.5%, which I preferred, as it was fuller, and richer. This one was MAYBE, one of the BEST FV's I have tried to date. At the higher rate, it was very full, and tasty. Tasted to my tastes like a SPOT ON FV. No thin or weak and water vanilla here, but a very realistic French Vanilla. In keeping with real FV's it wasn't spicy, but had some good mid, and dark(er) vanilla notes, WHICH, had a very authentic egg yolk-ed-ness to it. Not a custard, not buttery, and not creamy, but the taste/nuance was there.

When I increased from 2.5% to 3.5% it didn't increase linearly but it DID improve all around, so the uber sweet spot might be 3.0%. I did have the distinct urge to toss it into some Ice Cream, just to see if it would pull it over to the FV side, but pairings are outside the scope of this review. Spot on delicious, natural, and authentic at 3.5%, and sweetness was mid-level. No off-notes, wants, or could haves" for this one, and it was a hard one to put down. Clean, accurate, natural, were the take-aways. Yet another high score-er here folks. Leaving this one very high at a **9.8/10**."