Boston's Best Winter Beverages

...and by winter beverages, I mean hot chocolate (or cocoa, if you prefer).

Hot chocolate is ideal for SO many reasons. First of all, it lets you consume chocolate and satisfy thirst. Secondly, it's a perfect canvas for additional assertive, dessert-y flavors. Then, it's warm, making it the perfect extension of our heavy cold-weather armor to keep winter's chill at bay. If we want to stretch a bit, we can even say that it's healthy, being milk-based and all. (Always skim for me!)

These reasons have prompted me to explore a variety of Boston's hot chocolate offerings, and choose four that really stand out. Why did these four make the cut? Read on.

• Diesel Cafe's turtle hot chocolate, pictured above - this may be the most beautiful drink I've ever seen, and it tastes even better than it looks! Diesel's milk chocolate drink is accented with hazelnut, almond, and caramel syrups. A dollop of homemade whipped cream tops it all off, along with a dusting of cocoa powder. I love everything about this, from the creamy, warm taste of the milk chocolate, to the smooth, silky caramel; the subtle nutty flavors, the cool yet melting cream on top, and the unabashed sweetness of it all (no artisanal x-percent-cacao stuff going on here!). If I lived in Davis Square, I would drink this beverage at a frequency near that of addiction. More than the other three drinks, this exemplifies the hot-chocolate-as-dessert idea.
• 1369's raspberry hot chocolate - little Julie grew up loving chocolate-raspberry combinations, most of them unique to the Midwest: raspberry Frangos, Portillo's chocolate-raspberry cake, raspberry starfish from the chocolate shop in Oakbrook, and so on. Grown-up, East-coast Julie still loves those two things together, hence my gleeful enjoyment of 1369's beverage. This quirky coffeehouse starts with a milk chocolate hot-chocolate mix, and applies enough tangy raspberry syrup so that the finished product is distinctly rose in color. So pretty, and so tasty. The tangy syrup really makes it - so often, fruit flavors can be cloyingly sweet, but 1369's syrup respects what a natural raspberry flavor is. It's strong, but it blends well with the milk chocolate, whose sweetness is a perfect balance to the not-as-sweet fruit. 
• Flour's fiery hot chocolate - as with so many things Flour-sourced, I have a soft spot in my heart for this drink: I ordered it the very first time I went to Flour, and it was the first of many spicy/Mexican hot chocolates I would try in the years following. All those drinks later, I still think it's the best! Instead of starting with a powdered cocoa base, Flour's baristas use large scoops of fudge-like solid chocolate, and blend it into a delicious, creamy froth with the steamed milk. Its appearance and taste remind me of the pastry chocolate used within croissants and finer cookies. Then, the "fieriness" comes from generous applications of cayenne pepper and cinnamon. Your mouth stings and burns at first, but it soon mellows out thanks to that smooth, deep bittersweet chocolate base. Most other spicy cocoas bring too much heat, or not enough; Flour's is the only one that strikes the perfect balance between spicy zing and quality chocolate.
• Paris Creperie's Nutella hot chocolate - I'll admit it: more than once, I have traveled all the way from Cambridge to Coolidge Corner explicitly for this beverage. (An incidental accompanying crepe only sweetens [or savories?] the deal, mmm.) Unlike the above drinks, which use some form of chocolate as a base, this drink is all about the Nutella. That's right - we're talking milk and Nutella, heated and mixed together, into one perfect chocolate-hazelnut elixir. The baristas are very liberal with the Nutella, so that the end result is thicker and richer than most skim-based beverages. A side note: don't think you're out of luck once the weather gets warmer. The creperie also offers a Nutella frozen hot chocolate, which is the best dessert smoothie you'll ever have.

Of course, it's not always practical to travel for hot chocolate. When I crave this drink within my abode, I turn to Lake Champlain's organic mix...and Bailey's. ;-)

Am I missing anything? I'd love to hear others' thoughts on where to get mind-blowing hot chocolate. After all, this weekend's cold spell will not be Boston's last!