I had a hot chocolate yesterday at Starbucks. It was a little chilly, it was a little windy, it was a little sprinkly and I got out of church and took my betch ass to the nearest mermaid coffee store and consumed 37 grams of sugar in a 16-ounce cup.
It rocked.
I’ve always been a little bit of a hot chocolate guy, as you can imagine from a man who drinks a lot of milk. Hot chocolate is dessert milk. Like ice cream. And cheesecake. And cream puffs. Most good desserts are dessert milk, honestly. But hot chocolate is the best. Because it’s not just for dessert! You can have hot chocolate at virtually any moment of the day or night, and nobody will say anything but, “Damn, I could go for a hot chocolate myself right now.”
I’ve never been a hot chocolate evangelist, though, and that needs to change.
My first indication something was wrong came when I saw this tweet from Kevin Clark, Miami Hurricanes and F1 fan (terrible start, I know, but let’s keep the bathwater for the sake of the baby), and I batted an eye:
How had I never thought of this!
Now, I think of it at least once a week.
Change, of course, starts with us. We need to start making hot chocolate part of our daily lives. In the morning? Apologies to coffee, but it’s hot chocolate season. Mornings are for hot chocolate, and so are mid-afternoons and evenings before bed (unless the caffeine gives me weird dreams, in which case I will humbly request that the market develop decaf hot chocolate and wait for Adam Smith’s hand to gently rock me to sleep). The spring is for hot chocolate, and so is the summer, and the fall is especially for hot chocolate. Pumpkin Spice Lattes? Wait ‘til you yuppie fiends get a hold of Pumpkin Spice Hot Chocolate.
Now, I’m aware that this is the wrong time for me to aggressively become a hot chocolate guy. It’s about to be 100 degrees in Austin for the next five months. But consider this our proving ground. This is where we lay the infrastructure. And when September hits, and our friends in the north get that first breath of brisk morning air? They’ll know just what to brew up to get their day started right.
