I participated in the Hot Chocolate Festival last year with TDog and enjoyed our experience, so this year I am back! This time I went with DoctorT to 49th Parallel Coffee + Lucky’s Doughnuts for their entry into this year’s festival!
DoctorT let me have first dibs, so I picked The Lumberjack ($6) because spicy dark hot chocolate always intrigues me.
I thought the “spicy” would be the chili-type of spicy, but it was actually the nutmeggy, clovey type of spicy, which I really enjoyed. There was a slight, just very slight kick. I loved the fact that the drink was just lightly sweetened. There are far too many places that serve overly sweetened drinks, of any sort.
My Lumberjack was served with two maple marshmallows and a chocolate covered wafer logs. The maple marshmallows were pillowy and chewy, and the crackled “crust” was sort of crispy. We really liked it. The wafer log was a bit soft and cakey.
Since I took the Lumberjack, DoctorT took The Nanaimo Bar ($6). This hot chocolate drink has a base of 72% dark chocolate paired with butter icing sweetened milk (not sure what that is), and topped with a coconut whipped cream. The coconut whipped cream reminded me of the Asian dessert of Coconut milk tapioca and DoctorT agreed. Again it wasn’t overly sweetened which was again nice.
This drink was served with a doughnut-shaped financier, which is an almond flour based cakey-type pastry. The cake itself wasn’t very sweet, and it was more the icing sugar dusted on top that did all the work.
We really enjoyed the drinks we got. Too bad they don’t serve it year-round. I think I would like to be back for their regular dark hot chocolate though. I’ve heard good things.