The Strangest and Booziest Hot Chocolates in America
New recipes have arrived for one of the world’s oldest beverages—and winter’s most luscious indulgence.
This article is for subscribers only.
The human race has had a long love affair with sipping warm chocolate. You might be thinking sometime around Charles Dickens’s heyday as an educated guess, but you’d be sorely mistaken. Try the Aztecs, circa 14th century. They slurped what they called cacahuatl, a beverage made from smashing roasted cacao seeds to a pulp and combining it with flavoring spices such as vanilla and chilies. Aromatics and spices were used to soothe cacao’s innate bitterness.
Then go back even further. Thousands of years further.