Chocolate Cake Shot
Vodka and Frangelico with a sugar-lemon chaser — no chocolate, Frangelico's hazelnut and vanilla priming the palate to perceive the chaser as chocolate frosting.
- ¾ ozvodka
- ¾ ozhazelnut liqueur(such as Frangelico)
- sugared lemon wedgegarnish
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The Chocolate Cake Shot is a bar magic trick: a combination of vodka and Frangelico hazelnut liqueur, taken without any chocolate ingredient, that somehow tastes unmistakably of chocolate cake when immediately chased with a sugar-lemon slice. The shot's mechanism works through the combination of Frangelico's roasted hazelnut and vanilla notes with vodka, which together prime the palate to perceive the sugar-lemon chaser as chocolate frosting. First popularized in the early 1990s in bars across the US and UK, the shot became famous as a bartending demonstration piece — a test of whether the effect would work — and generating a "how is that possible" reaction from drinkers who found the illusion genuinely convincing.
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