HoCho Fest Day 17: Chartreuse Milkshake

This evening's hot chocolate festival stop called for an upscale, classy establishment with an unassuming exterior offering a hot chocolate "inspired" cocktail. CC and I headed down to Uva Wine Bar and Bittered Sling to meet my fellow later and to get a head-start on checking out the location for ourselves.

The interior was very warm, with red designs trimmed with silver decorating the walls around us. Red furniture and interior reflected warm red light throughout the wine bar. It felt very relaxing, but in a way that sort of demanded you relax while wearing your business-casual clothes - not that I'm complaining, it is nice (in my opinion) to find a unique place to go and dress up for!

 While we waited for the fellow to arrive so we could order our selected festival item, we examined the menu and found many tasty-sounding appetizers and decided upon the daily special of $2 bruschettas. The daily bruschetta was mostly squash, and was absolutely ah-MAZING - definitely inspiring to try and make my own squash spread with some yummy herbs and perhaps Daiya cheese if it cooperated?

Uva's HC-inspired cocktail: Citadelle gin, Green Chartreuse, cacao beans, lime
and orange juice, Bittered Sling Malagasy chocolate bitters, egg white.
Served with zeppoli (Italian donuts!) *Only served after 11A.M.
($12)

 I researched the Green Chartreuse ahead of time, as I was curious what this aspect of the beverage had in store - I would recommend anyone else looking into it as well! It is said to be made with 130 different herbs and is perhaps the only naturally green liqueur.

Zeppoli (Italian donut)

 There were a lot of herbal flavours in it that became evident on the first sip - initially I thought that it was the standard potent alcohol flavour that surprised me, but upon inspecting my tastebuds, it was actually a party of herbs and citrus flavours dancing on my tongue! The lime and orange juice mixed really well with the herbs of the Chartreuse, and the gin added an extra kick that brought it to life. Each rest between sips was characterized by a nice aftertaste. AT first, it was tough to detect the cacao taste, but as we (since everyone shared) continued to sip, the tastes all became more present.

As for the zeppoli? Well, we split it between the three of us, but I have never tried a treat with quite that texture and taste! The most accurate word I could think to describe its texture is "squishy", somewhat like a marshmallow, I suppose, and it had strawberry preserve in the centre to bring a bit more of a tartness to the very sweet dough which was covered in cinnamon sugar. All-in-all, a lovely treat with lovely people at a new-found location for high-end snacking and socializing! Not too far from home, either.