As the thermometer hit 88 degrees today, we discussed…what else? Hot chocolate.
Bob Wells and Mel Tormé wrote “The Christmas Song” -- one of the most classic, wintriest, snow-bedazzled songs of all time -- during the hottest dog days of the summer of 1944. So we figure we can invent New York’s Happiest Hot Chocolate in the fierce early summer of 2014, to the hum of the AC in our Chief Cacao Nut’s living room.
We won’t divulge here the formulas and ingredients we discussed in today’s top-secret, closed-door meeting (remember, we had to keep the door closed: the AC was on). We don’t want to spoil the surprise we have planned for you in our store later this autumn. So you’ll have to trust us that our proposed formulations and presentations are…interesting.
We’re curious to hear: what are some of the best hot chocolate flavorings and add-ins you’ve tasted? Anything you thought would be good in theory that disappointed in practice?
One year we sampled every flavor of hot chocolate at the City Bakery Hot Chocolate Festival (because, why not?) and found their lemon, ginger, banana peel, bourbon, and spiced fig versions all surprisingly good, but the Earl Grey tea, “darkest dark,” and “polar bear” (white) varieties not quite as memorable as the others.
Anyway, we think everybody’s going to love our hot chocolate when you finally get to try it, a few months from now when there's a real chill in the air, instead of a BTU-generated one. We’re creating it specifically to appeal to kids from 1 to 92.
