A Sneak Peek At Starbucks' Newest Drink: The Hazelnut Macchiato Slideshow

Whether you order your drink with skim, full-fat, 2 percent, or soy, the milk is what provides that "thick, velvety, meringue"-like base of the macchiato. So its all about aerating the milk. Once the milk is steamed to get that nice foamy head on top, its ready for the espresso and drizzle.

Surprisingly, its not the hazelnut syrup that gets pumped into the drink its the vanilla syrup that you find in your lattes. Thats what gives the drink its sweet flavor from the get-go. Two pumps of vanilla go into a tall-sized macchiato.

The milk gets poured into the vanilla-filled cup with that thick foamy head.

Once the milk and syrup are in the cup, its time to "mark" the drink hence the name of the macchiato. Usually, you add the espresso first in the cup, Nieves explains, but in a macchiato, its added after the milk. Youll see the two marks from the espresso shots poured into the milk.

It's time for that hazelnut "sauce" that gets put on top (not called syrup, so it won't get confused with the syrup that acts as the base of the drink.) And while you might think that your baristas are haphazardly drizzling the sauce on top, not so — Nieves  slowed down the drizzle process to show that it's seven "crisscrosses" in each direction (almost like a tic-tac-toe game), and then topped with two full circular sweeps of the cup. Let's just say, your baristas are pros at the crisscross-circle-swoop.

The result? A sip of the great milky foam, a touch of hazelnut, a kick of espresso, and a sweet bottom layer of vanilla, Nieves says. "The macchiatos are very layered drinks," he says. "So youre getting a mixture of flavors as you drink it."

Of course, your new favorite drink can also be made into an iced macchiato, too. An iced tall hazelnut macchiato starts with the vanilla, is topped with a scoop of ice, and is finished with the milk, espresso, and hazelnut sauce. (Theres nothing like watching that sauce drip down the side of the cup, too.) And yes, Frappuccino fans can get the frap-treatment of the hazelnut macchiato, too.