The perfect hot chocolate

Whether you're warming up from blizzard-condition snows or rain worthy of a monsoon, hot chocolate is one of the country's most popular and delicious winter drinks.  Here are a few tips for creating the perfect hot chocolate with your favorite storebought mix (I prefer Swiss Miss milk chocolate or the Williams Sonoma mix), with or without alcohol added. 

1.  Use double the chocolate.  Instead of using how much milk chocolate the recipe calls for, double it.  You will get richer flavor.

2.  Use milk.  Even skim milk adds lots of richness, but I prefer 2 percent.  Using milk instead of water will create a richer, more homemade flavor.

3.  Add the mix before you heat.  Many directions call for heating the milk before adding the mix, but when you heat the milk and mix together, you get a more chocolate-y flavor.

4.  If you are adding alcohol or extra chocolate syrup, make sure that these things are room temperature so that your newly heated hot chocolate will not chill.

5.  Add in something extra.  Whether peppermint sticks (or flavor, which you can find in the spices aisle), cinnamon, chocolate syrup, coffee syrups (like caramel or mocha), or coffee, adding something different to your hot chocolate can make it seem extra special.

Here is my favorite recipe for a hot chocolate with a little alcohol:

Renee's Hot Chocolate

Ingredients:

1 package Swiss Miss milk chocolate mix

1-2 squirts Hershey's chocolate syrup (room temperature)

1 oz Godiva milk chocolate liquer (room temperature)

1/4 oz Myers dark rum (room temperature)

1 cup 2 percent milk (or as needed by recipe on Swiss Miss box)

Reddi Whip (as needed to top drink)

cinnamon as a garnish

1.  Mix Swiss Miss packet and milk in a coffee mug.  Heat through in mircowave, usually around 1 min and 30 seconds.

2.  Add both liquors and chocolate syrup.  Mix well.

3.  Heat one more time for 30 sec, just to warm the liquor.

4.  Top with whip cream and cinnamon and enjoy!

Here is one more recipe for a hot chocolate cocktail which includes some tips on keeping the liquor warm (see how she heats the glass beforehand).  My only qualms are that I would use milk, and that I would mix the mixture by hand in absence of the handy mixer that she uses.