This is one of those recipes that neatly achieves a little fanciness without requiring much in the way of special ingredients or prep time. I can’t remember when I first tasted spicy hot chocolate, but I definitely fell in love. Smooth, earthy chocolate is punctuated beautifully by the power twins of cinnamon and cayenne. You can certainly exclude the Drambouie if you wish, but know that you are missing out (unless you are pregnant or otherwise medically excluded from alcoholic beverages, in which case hit the whipped cream with gusto and carry on with your spicy, chocolatey self).
I recommend Dagoba Hot Chocolate here, though you can use any hot chocolate powder. Stop, go back, read that again. I’m taking you through a shortcut by using a hot chocolate powder, rather than unsweetened chocolate that you sugar up yourself. Do not try to make this with plain old Hershey’s, and definitely do not send me a nasty email after doing so wherein you tell me how yucky your drink turned out. Hot chocolate powders have sugar already blended in. I like Dagoba because it’s sweet, but not overly so. I’ve made hot chocolate from absolute scratch, and wasn’t happy enough with the results to be interested in the extra steps.
