Home-Infused Cinnamon Whiskey and Homemade Hot Chocolate: Suck a Dick, Cold Front

The multi-day forecast shows another week of single-digit or subzero temps: I need something else to look forward to. Time to see if Rygar wants to swing by after work and test my new jar of home-infused cinnamon whiskey — this time made with Fireside Straight Bourbon Whiskey instead of Beam.

It includes the usual big cinnamon stick and a dried arbol chile, but I pull it after three days instead of five to see if the better whiskey and milder spice will make it more approachable. The last time I brought a jar for him to try at the game shop, I could hear the soft tissues of his throat and stomach sizzling like bacon.

Plus I have all the makings for homemade hot chocolate, something I’ve never made in my whole life: Whole milk, unsweet cocoa powder, sugar, semisweet chocky chips, little marshmallows, all that shit. He stomps out of the freezing addition of my house in his electrified vest just as the spiked cup comes off the stove: Damn, this is good.

Project L: I’m flying off the caffeine and booze in this cinnamon whiskey-spiked hot chocolate, of course we want to handle all these pieces. Everybody does.

We try a sip of the cinnamon whiskey straight, too. Switching up the base was a good move: It’s mellower, less brute alcohol and sugar flavor, more depth in the middle, the burn in better balance with the booze. Once it’s stirred into the hot chocolate mug? Potent. I can’t even feel the booze hit because the caffeine and sugar has me off my face halfway through the drink. It’s a good accompaniment to the cigarettes and joints that get taken in multiple hit-and-run attacks in the addition. I can feel the cold conducting into the soles of my sneakers and Rygar points out during our second break that my hands look purple.

He has to go make sure a place he’s housesitting doesn’t have frozen pipes. We have about 15 minutes and half a mug left, so would he like to try Project L? We breeze through his first game in minutes flat and he declares it his new favorite. He mimics eating the irresistible pieces — this game would be a death sentence for any unattended toddler with functioning senses — and heads out with a bottle of Winter Warlock Oatmeal Stout. You gotta design waypoints with treats, light the route with little candles here and there.

More on this game and this drink in a future episode of Breakup Gaming Society.