Happy post-Valentine’s Day, everybody!!  In Ontario, we are lucky enough to follow the booze soaked romanticism with a statutory holiday this year.  We call it “Family Day”, an invented holiday which was only recently legislated a few years back.  At  it’s very core, this statutory holiday is nothing more than an add-on to increase morale and possibly as a panacea for our Canadian souls as we plod our way through the long, cold, dark and dismal winters.  In these short and gray days, shivering our way through the nights, the prospect of a long weekend and holiday Monday inspires far more hope than thinking about the spring thaw which is still months away.  Ergo, Family Day was created, and across the province it is usually celebrated in one of four ways;

1) Spend a day with your family! Join the kids in some healthy outdoor activities like skating on the local pond or tobogganing, followed by a steaming mug of hot cocoa and a DVD.

2) Flee this godforsaken province, if only for a couple of days, to remind yourself that life will be worth living again come April.

3) Realize that your friends are all otherwise engaged for the weekend due to an extended love-in following yesterday’s V-Day celebrations, and your parents still aren’t returning your calls because they decided to flee this godforsaken province, if only for a couple of days.  Start drinking, initially to stay warm and ward off boredom, and end up curled in the foetal position in front of the fireplace, keening for your misbegotten youth and counting the hours until you go back to work.

4) Keep the Valentine’s Day spirit going!  Get hammered and start trying to make a family today.

You can guess which one we chose.  When cocktails mean “dessert”, and dessert means something entirely different, we opt for the sweet and fanciful cake in a cup:  the Black Forest Caketail.

Black Forest Caketail

makes 1 cocktail

• 1 oz Kahlua
• 1/2 oz Crème de Cacao (white or dark)
• 1/2 oz cherry brandy
• 3 oz milk

For garnish:

• chocolate shavings OR cocoa powder
• maraschino cherry

Pour the Kahlua and chocolate liqueur (Crème de Cacao) into the bottom of a martini glass.

Add 1 cube of ice to a cocktail shaker and pour the milk and cherry brandy over top.  Shake this vigorously until frothy and combined.

Set a large soup spoon on top of the liqueur in the glass, just barely touching the miniscus of the chocolate.  Slowly and carefully pour the milk mixture onto the spoon and let this drizzle over top of the kahlua to form two separate layers.  Pouring this gently and slowly encourages the second layer to sit on top rather than combining with the denser liquid below.  Spoon the foam (from inside the shaker) over top if you wish, and garnish with a maraschino cherry…..

….or a sprinkling of cocoa if that helps you to whet your whistle.

Like sipping on a traditional Black Forest Cake with the rich chocolate, boozy cherry and sweet creaminess, this is the cocktail that keeps on kicking while the dishes are being done, and well into the late night hours.  After all, liqueur, chocolate and cherry – how could you go wrong?

Because sometimes dessert actually DOES mean, well, dessert, this caketail is also delectable served on the side of your favorite sweet treat to either send you into a diabetic coma or have you dreaming of sugar plums all night long.

Chin Chin, and Happy Made Up Holiday Day!!!!