Hot chocolate isn’t just for kids. In fact, adults can make this classic cozy beverage a little bit cozier with the addition of alcohol. Since there’s no shortage of liquors and liqueurs that can blend well with a cup of sippable cocoa, we’ve compiled some of the best boozy hot chocolate recipes below to suit any tastes and help you stay warm and festive this season. Thinking about serving hot chocolate at a holiday party? We’ve got you covered.
Kahlúa Hot Chocolate
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A coffee liqueur like Kahlúa makes a natural pairing with hot chocolate, adding some extra earthy complexity to the cocoa flavoring. This recipe will guide you through making a Kahlúa hot chocolate from scratch, topped with nutmeg, marshmallows, and salted caramel sauce upon serving, or you can simply add some to whatever mix you have on hand.
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Nutella is a chocolatey hazelnut spread that became an object of obsession in America only in the past decade, and it doesn’t take much imagination to see how it would pair perfectly with an old staple like hot chocolate. This straightforward recipe replaces the cocoa powder with Nutella entirely and leaves your options open for what to spike it with, between bourbon, cacao rum, Frangelico, or a chocolate liqueur.
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Perhaps unsurprisingly, Bailey’s — an Irish whiskey liqueur flavored with cream and cocoa — is another ideal alcoholic pairing for hot chocolate. This recipe finishes by putting the marshmallow-topped mugs in the broiler, creating a toasty-sweet top crust.
A milkshake-esque cocktail with Bailey’s and Kahlúa, the Mudslide can be easily converted from frozen to steaming hot to suit the colder seasons. The food blog Lemons for Lulu details how to do it on the stovetop with the additions of heavy cream, half and half, strong coffee, and two kinds of chocolate flavoring. The result gets an extra boost of dessert-y decadence with a scoop of chocolate ice cream on top. (For real chocolate dessert options, check out 18 Cheap Recipes That Celebrate Chocolate.)
Beer lovers should know that a dark, full-bodied stout is the best brew to incorporate in hot chocolate, especially when it already has some chocolate or nutty flavoring itself. For this recipe, chocolate stout forms almost as much of the base as whole milk, and the carbonated cocoa gets the root beer float treatment with a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream as a topping.
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Here’s one for the grown-up Harry Potter fans, and/or butterscotch lovers, who don’t mind putting in some extra effort for their cocoa. The recipe incorporates a homemade butterscotch sauce into the liquid itself as well as its whipped cream topping, while bourbon provides the alcoholic content.
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Wine lovers can get in the chilly season’s spirit with this simple yet effective combination of hot cocoa and a fruity red wine of your choice, such as zinfandel, merlot, or syrah. Here the flavor profile really comes together with the addition of cinnamon.
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Just when you think you’ve run out of easy pairings with chocolate, let us remind you of orange, perhaps the fruit most associated with the holiday season. This recipe begins with a standard serving of hot chocolate, then adds an ounce each of brandy and an orange liqueur like Cointreau or triple sec before topping with orange zest, marshmallows, and a dark chocolate drizzle.
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Pumpkin Spice Hot Chocolate
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Pumpkin-spiced beverages are something of a fall phenomenon, so of course the flavors can find their way into hot chocolates as well. This recipe offers alternative preparations using dark or white chocolate to complement the pumpkin puree and associated spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. A tablespoon of bourbon adds the boozy element at the end. (Can’t get enough pumpkin spice? Here are 25 Pumpkin Spice-Flavored Products You’ll Want to Try — and 13 to Skip.)
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Though not really chocolate in the technical sense (as it doesn’t contain cocoa solids), white chocolate still makes for a belovedly creamy confection, whether in solid or liquid form. If you’d rather go without the depth of milk or dark chocolate, try this recipe, which gets much of its flavor from sweetened condensed milk, and its alcoholic content from vanilla vodka.
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If you’re already leaning towards a white chocolate drink, try this tip: Blend in a few of Oreo’s mint-crème cookies for added, um, deliciousness. In addition, the recipe also calls for mint vodka in place of vanilla.
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For those who don’t know, RumChata is a rum-infused spin on the classic Hispanic beverage horchata, made with cinnamon and sweetened rice or nut milk. And if you haven’t already guessed, it goes great with hot chocolate on chilly nights. (For more Latin-influenced treats, see Traditional Hispanic Foods Most Americans Don’t Know About but Should.)
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While we’re talking about Hispanic hot chocolates, this drink makes prominent use of Patron’s Incendio tequila, which is blended with Mexican arbol chile and Criollo chocolate. Use a cinnamon stick to garnish and stir together this incomparable mix of sugar and spice.
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Malibu may have originated from the Caribbean, but the popular coconut rum liqueur can still be served warm to suit a colder climate as well. One shot is enough to add a tropical flair to your favorite hot chocolate mix, or you can follow this recipe by pairing it with Kahlúa as well.
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Spiced rum is yet another relatively common staple of the liquor cabinet that combines smoothly into hot chocolate. A Cocktail Life provides the recipe to make a spicy, spiked cocoa from scratch using the rum of your choice, plus some seasonal spices of your own, including, rather unusually, cayenne pepper.
Vegan Mezcal Hot Chocolate
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Like tequila, mezcal is distilled from the agave plant, but boasts a distinctly smoky flavor that’s made it an increasingly popular ingredient in craft cocktails of late. This recipe puts it in the context of a vegan-friendly hot cocoa, composed of coconut milk with the added flavorings of smoky chipotle and spicy cayenne.
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For another coconut milk hot chocolate, this recipe adds to the silkiness of melted cocoa with French cognac of the “very special” variety, meaning it’s only been aged a minimum of two years. Even in this context, you can be sure to appreciate the cognac’s complex flavor profile through the chocolate, featuring notes of fruit, flower, oak, and earth.
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Whiskey adds a somewhat dominant flavor to anything it’s a part of, so this hot chocolate is for enthusiasts only. This recipe recommends using Irish Kilbeggan blended whiskey, which is noted for having a flavor somewhere between traditional whiskey and American bourbon.
If you have tasty ingredients, why complicate things? Other than the hot cocoa mix itself, all you need to make this cocktail is a shot of butterscotch schnapps. This liqueur may be on the unusual side, but it’s worth ordering a bottle to have on-hand for other drinks during this sweetest time of the year.
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But if butterscotch isn’t your thing, what about peppermint? Peppermint schnapps will add a bit of cooling refreshment to your hot chocolate, and you can get rid of any candy canes or peppermint sticks you have lying around by crushing and lining the rim with them for a garnish.
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Originally inspired by the many dishes in Asian cuisine using peanut sauce, Skrewball is a peanut-infused whiskey from California. Anyone who loves Reese’s or other chocolate-peanut-based sweets is probably already salivating at the idea of a Skrewball hot chocolate.
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If there’s any drink that evokes the holidays better than hot chocolate, it’s eggnog. This recipe brings the two together with surprising simplicity. Besides the eggnog and white chocolate chips, all you need to prepare it are crème de cacao and white chocolate liqueur. Alternatively, you could add eggnog liqueur to a standard white or regular hot chocolate.
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This recipe for adult hot chocolate utilizes a tempting variety of alcoholic ingredients, including bourbon, Irish cream, and the hazelnut liqueur Frangelico. If you don’t mind going the extra mile, they also provide instructions for how to make your own Irish cream at home.
Born and raised in southern California, Jeffrey Rindskopf is a freelance writer based in Seattle, focusing on fiction as well as feature articles pertaining to travel, food, film, personal finance, music and local arts.
