Hot Chocolate Manhattan

It's very cold. Have a warm, cozy cocktail.

If you live on the East Coast, it’s going to be very, very cold this week.

Here in Washington, D.C., the meteorology geeks at Capital Weather Gang are warning that the city is about to be blasted by an “arctic front.” The “most frigid weather is still to come.” Next Monday’s presidential inauguration has been moved indoors due to “dangerously cold temperatures.” As I write this, my weather app tells me that on Tuesday, the low will be 7 degrees.

That is not very many degrees.

And I, for one, can’t wait.

I am a Cold Weather Enjoyer, almost fanatically so. I enjoy piles of snow, harsh winds, and that feeling of chilly numbness that overtakes your fingers when you’ve been out in freezing air for a little too long. In the winter, I like to turn off the heat and open the windows. I sometimes let the indoor temperature in my home office dip down into the 50s. Cold weather is better for sleeping and better for thinking.

It’s also better for drinking—especially hot drinks and Manhattans.

So after two weeks of sprawling non-alcoholic theory and complex NA cocktail mods, we’re going to return to real booze by combining these two cold-weather pleasures, with a simple, high-quality hot chocolate—not from a store-bought powder!—mixed with whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters.

It’s hot chocolate. It’s a Manhattan. It’s a Hot Chocolate Manhattan.

Even if you’re not a Cold Weather Enjoyer, it will make the freezing temps worth it.

Eggs-actly

The Hot Chocolate Manhattan arose partly out of my interest in “cocktail-izing” drinks that usually aren’t thought of as cocktails. That’s especially true with egg and dairy drinks, like flips and eggnogs. And hot chocolate is, after all, a dairy drink.