Baileys Hot Chocolate
Winter's most comforting upgrade — rich hot chocolate spiked with Irish cream for a cozy, boozy mug that wraps you up from the inside out.
- 2 ozirish cream liqueur
- 8 ozwhole milk
- 1 barspooncocoa powder
- 1 ozdark chocolate
- 1Finely chop the dark chocolate and set aside.
- 2Pour the whole milk into a small saucepan and heat over medium heat, whisking occasionally, until steaming but not boiling.
- 3Whisk in the cocoa powder until fully dissolved.
- 4Add the chopped dark chocolate and stir until completely melted and smooth.
- 5Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the Irish cream liqueur.
- 6Pour into a mug and top with whipped cream and a dusting of cocoa powder or chocolate shavings. Serve immediately.
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Hot chocolate and Irish cream make one of the most natural pairings in the drink world — both lean on milk and chocolate as foundational flavors. While the exact first instance of adding Irish cream to hot cocoa is unknown, the combination gained widespread visibility when Baileys began actively promoting it as a seasonal serving suggestion in the 1990s. The drink took off in home bartender culture during the 2010s as social media made cozy, indulgent cocktail recipes highly shareable each autumn. Today it ranks among the most-searched seasonal cocktail recipes every fall and winter, and is a standard fixture on holiday drinks menus across the United States, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.
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