snow picnic V

Last but not least, cocktails and drinks. I knew I wanted a hot drink and I didn't want to do the obvious hot chocolate. White chocolate would have been an obvious direction I guess, but I am of the opinion that white chocolate makes an awesome moisturizer and not much else. So I made affogatos, an italian coffee drink/dessert that is composed of ice cream with a shot of espresso poured over it. (and often booze as well) They are sometimes mostly ice cream and sometimes mostly coffee-- I opted for the later to keep it in the drink category. I also skipped the liquor since I already had made a cocktail. Warm, tasty and elegant. Next was the cocktail- sugar on snow. Sugar on snow is a maple harvesting tradition and is incredibly addictive. It is sort like maple flavored caramel. So I packed my champagne coupes with snow (it must be packed in or the hot syrup will just melt right through it) poured my sugar and then added a little goldschlager, which not only adds a nice cinnamon flavor but little gold flakes-- and then topped the whole thing with prosecco. You have to drink it before all the snow melts... but that wasn't really a problem. I found the little mother of pearl spoons on ebay and they really completed the drink. I ate a shocking amount of maple snow the day I was testing these out.