This Old-School Cocktail Is Made For Chocolate Lovers

Sipping a vintage cocktail evokes retro glamour and sophistication, as if you're a stylish character in a black-and-white movie, sitting at an opulent bar full of refined, fashionable people with an elegant drink in your hand. If you're someone who likes that old-school cocktail vibe and also has a deep love of chocolate, you can't do much better than a classic brandy alexander.

Creamy and sweet, brandy alexanders are made from brandy, chocolate-flavored liqueur crème de cacao, and heavy cream shaken together with ice and topped with a sprinkling of freshly grated nutmeg (which boosts cream sauces too!). The drink is so rich and sweetly luxurious that it's often considered a dessert cocktail, meant to be leisurely savored. It also inspires a celebratory, holiday season feel from the chocolate and nutmeg flavors and lushness of the cream.

The cocktail can be made with any kind of brandy — essentially a distilled, aged wine — but most commonly used is cognac, a premium brandy from France. Crème de cacao's name is a little deceptive, because there isn't any cream in it. This liqueur, made from cacao beans, is labeled a crème because of its high sugar content. It's sold as either white, which is clear and has a milk chocolate flavor, or dark, with a deeper chocolate taste and a brown color. Either one can be used in a brandy alexander, according to how chocolatey you want the finished cocktail to be.

The origin of the brandy alexander is hazy, but it's based on a cocktail called the Alexander, which is made with gin instead of brandy, but with the same other ingredients. A prevailing story is that the original cocktail was created by a bartender named Troy Alexander at New York City's Hotel Rector in the early 1900s. At some point, the gin was replaced by brandy, and the new formulation's first written mention was as a drink called Alexander #2 in 1930's "Savoy Cocktail Book." The brandy cocktail was popular for decades after that, and has been part of the rediscovery of classic cocktails in recent years.

There are plenty more old-school cocktails out there, with several made using crème de cacao and heavy cream like the brandy alexander, combined with some other ingredients. The Grasshopper has crème de menthe instead of brandy, creating a minty chocolate flavor and a green hue. A retro pink squirrel cocktail gets its dainty pink color from an unusual liqueur, crème de noyaux, which gives the drink a chocolate-almond taste. Meanwhile, a chocolate martini combines the crème de cacao and heavy cream with vodka and another chocolate liqueur like Godiva.