Sunday, December 14, 2008

mexican hot chocolate

This month's Mixology Monday theme, "Spice" (MxMo XXXIV), was chosen by Craig from Tiki Drinks & Indigo Firmaments. Craig gave the description as, "Spice should give you plenty of room to play - from the winter warmers of egg nog, wassail and mulled products to the strange and interesting infusions of pepper, ceubub, grains of paradise, nutmeg — what have you! I would like to stretch the traditional meanings of spice (as the bark, seed, nut or flowering part of a plant used for seasoning) to basically anything used for flavoring that isn’t an herb. Salt? Go for it. Paprika? I’d love to see you try."
When Andrea and I went to the Taza Chocolate Factory open house a little over a week ago, my question of what to do for this Mixology Monday was answered when we saw packages of Chocolate Mexicano with Cinnamon for sale. Taza is a local (Somerville, MA) chocolate maker that uses only free-trade organic cocao beans that they buy directly from small farmer cooperatives. Taza uses a stone grinding process that leaves in a lot of the fruity and nutty flavors that are lost in the conching process utilized in making standard smooth chocolate (Taza is a bit gritty). The Chocolate Mexicano we bought contains only three ingredients: roasted cocoa beans, cane sugar, and cinnamon stick. They also make one with vanilla bean and one with almond.
Mexicano Hot Chocolate
• 1 cup soy milk
• 1/2 disk Taza Mexican chocolate (about 0.7 oz)
• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 1/2 oz Partida Blanco Tequila
• 1 cinnamon stick
Heat soy milk, cayenne, and chocolate in a pot and stir until chocolate has fully melted. Pour into a mug with the tequila, and garnish with a cinnamon stick.
The end product was quite flavorful -- it was richly flavored without being all that sweet, and was very delightful as compared to regular store-bought powders. The tequila mixed well with the chocolate and the spice and was perfect in the recommended 1 part in 5 ratio that I found online. The cayenne could have been cut back a bit; while it was not too fiery for me, the flavors did mask the cinnamon a bit. Overall, a perfect drink to sip as the cold December winds whip across our windows.

View the list of the other MxMo 34 Spice entries here!

3 comments:

Who is Felicia? said...

Que sabrosa! xo Felicia

Who is Felicia? said...

Que sabrosa! xo Felicia

Unknown said...

An easy but still delicious way to enjoy the real and traditional mexican flavors! try that hot chocolate with a piece of bread, submerge it on the cup and enjoy that piece of heaven in your mouth!