Special Request - Winter Drink Recipe

I've been asked by my dear friend Margaret to write a post including a winter drink recipe and this story is one of my favorites to tell and drink!

It was probably around 18 years ago that I was in the heart of Boston, mid-February with an old friend; and we were taking in all that city has to offer. As I recall I was grossly under dressed but for fashion's sake I had to look good! Some time within the first hour I remember buying a scarf which did little to ward off the cold wind, but we kept on our journey. We walked much of it, going from the Museum of Fine Art to Faneuil Hall and many places in between including where the Boston Tea Party had taken place.

When I really could go no further, we stopped at the Irish Pub; The Black Rose, which took me in and kept my heart. Of course when you walk into an Irish Pub, you're speaking normally and by the time you leave you have an Irish brogue so thick it's as if you just stepped off the boat! Upon our arrival the astute bartender could see that I was nearly frozen and suggested an Irish Coffee, which was "guaranteed to warm your insides in no time at all". When I sadly proclaimed my one deficiency in that I dislike coffee - which most people cannot understand, he stood back; sized me up and said, "I have something that will do just fine for the lady".

With that, he turned around to make an Irish Coffee for my equally cold friend and this special concoction for me. When he returned, he placed this large coffee mug heaped with whipped cream in front of me and said I should try it and let him know if I liked it. Let me tell you; if there is heaven in a mug, I felt it had just been delivered to me in the form of an Irish Cocoa. In there is of course the base of a good cup of hot chocolate but the rest of the ingredients are where the magic comes in. I'll post the recipe here, and would encourage you all to find an excuse to have a cup or three and you too will be singing Irish Ballads and speaking as if you had just kissed the Blarney Stone!

Irish Cocoa

I Large Coffee Mug (don't get one of those skimpy ones)
1 1/2 packages of hot cocoa mix
Hot water to make 3/4 of a mug of cocoa
Mix together and then add:
1 oz Irish Cream
1 oz Spiced Rum
1 oz Regular Rum or Vodka (your choice)
stir together
Top off with whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon

Enjoy . . . repeat

And to my friend, I raise a toast:
"May the hinges of our friendship never grow rusty, Slàinte. "

MJ
Classic Cottage Living

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