Mint Chocolate Sip

Long Winded Instructions

This one? Oh this is a good one.

Where to begin? Well, we started with a simple question. Can we make Abuelitas into a cocktail? If you’re not familiar, Abuelitas is a type of hot chocolate. It comes in the form of a disc that you melt into your water or milk. It’s very, very good. Although, I don’t drink it too often because there’s so much sugar in it that it makes my heart race. But, we wanted to capture the essence in a new alcoholic beverage and we went to town trying to create one. In fact, we shot some footage of our initial experiments with this idea and a clip of me grating the disc into a powder appears momentarily in the intros for our videos.

However, we found that the grated Abuelitas was not better than any of the other hot chocolate powder mixes that we tried when crafting this cocktail. So, we don’t actually have a recommendation. Whatever you have in your cupboard will do.

We always had whiskey in mind for this, partly because of its warming properties. As it turns out, whiskey and chocolate powder alone are… ok. But the mint! Oh the mint is what tied this one together.

But, I’m sure you didn’t come here for an origin story, fascinating as it was. You came here to drink something that tastes like all of that stuff I just mentioned. I fully support this. In fact, I’m going to tell you exactly how to do it.

Pour the simple syrup into a shaker. Toss your mint in there and prepare to muddle. Ready? Ok, muddle away. Well done. Now, add your whiskey or bourbon. This is also a good time to add your chocolate powder. You could even throw a little extra in there if you so desired.

Now it’s getting good! Add some ice and shake it, much like you would some dice in one of those dice shaking cups. A lot like that, actually. Now strain the resulting liquid into your presentation glass.

Here’s where we turn up the fancy. For garnish, we like a nice chocolate square (or even rectangle) on a fancy tooth pick with some fresh mint leaves. However, you can’t just stab the chocolate with the tooth pick. We know because we broke several chocolate squares that way. We found that you get the toothpick through cleanly if you melt the chocolate ever so slightly in the middle with a lighter. You don’t need much heat. You’re just looking to soften things up a bit so the chocolate is more forgiving. Once the tooth pick is in there and sitting over the ice on top of your drink, the hope is that it will harden back up pretty quickly. Skewer a few choice mint leaves on your tooth pick as well. Place gingerly on top of the drink. Nicely done.

One final detail. You’ve already busted out that chocolate powder. So, sprinkle a bit on top.

That’s it! You’ve got yourself a Mint Chocolate Sip. Now you can cuddle up next to the fireplace with your cocktail and your favorite e-zine. Life is good.