Everyone loves the classic hot chocolate and with the cold season approaching we resort to all these special hot beverages and the sales go through the roof of many coffee shops in town. This time how about diving into something new, relishing the ancestor of our dear hot chocolate, Xocolatl - Spicy hot chocolate of the ancient Aztecs. Historians believe that the cocoa was first discovered in the MesoAmerican region. The ancient rulers of the Mexico, the Aztecs used this cocoa to prepare their traditional drink. Xoco means bitter beverage and atl means water. So typically this is a bitter drink but spiced with jalapenos. This is how the raw cocoa was used in the olden days until Colombus took this back to Europe where it was mixed with milk and sugar and made more palatable. In the ancient time it was just mixed with water and sometimes vanilla bean and honey, with the ingredients readily available. It was the Europeans that refined it and made it a vital ingredient in many of the desserts. 
Traditionally this drink made by grinding raw cocoa and water. But we can substitute this with cocoa powder and add milk if the taste is very bitter.
| Xocolatl | Aztec Spicy Chocolate Jalapeño spiced Hot chocolate, traditional ancient chocolate drink of the Aztecs. Prep time: 2 mins | Cook time: 2 mins | Total time: 5 Mins | Serves: 2
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This recipe is for letter "X" under "Misc" theme. Check out other BM #32 Marathon runners' posts here in this page.
Logo courtesy : Preeti
Love this new version. I will be surely trying out for we have a jalapeno crazy creature at home.
I read about xocolatl while looking for X recipes..Love the spicy version..
Very very interesting drink. It must have tasted so good. Love your presentation.
Wonderful recipe... love the variation with chocolate.
Fantastic spicy chocolate..Loving it.
lovely find Nisha, this is indeed good one, i have read a lot of aztec cuisine, made some truffles in the past
Looks fabulous... Should have tasted awesome
Spicy cocoa drink. A new recipe indeed.
I actually made this already for one of my BM posts for next month - but I made it with milk - nice to see the traditional way of making it also
That's a wonderful twist..I have seen chili chocolate..never tried..this looks very tempting..
This is interesting. .we saw some ready cocoa drinks with chilli in US chocolate show....the mingling of flavours will make it delicious.