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!