Warm Up At Your Next Party With A Fancy DIY Hot Chocolate Bar

Hot chocolate is a must-have at any holiday party — it's warming and cozy, as well as a great non-alcoholic drink choice that's still festive. With this in mind, you may want to consider having a hot chocolate bar at your next party to offer your guests a unique experience — including a special range of hot chocolate flavors and toppings.

The first thing to figure out is how many types of hot chocolate you have room for in your space. For example, if you have a stovetop with four burners, then you can make four different types of hot chocolate. They need to be kept on the stove to keep the temperature warm, so, unfortunately, you'll be limited. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing — more than four flavors of hot chocolate may be a bit overwhelming. Those flavors might include a classic hot chocolate, an extra chocolatey one, peppermint hot cocoa, and vanilla cinnamon hot chocolate. There's also Mexican hot chocolate, for a hint of spice, or red velvet hot cocoa for a pop of bright color.

Additionally, even though hot chocolate is a great non-alcoholic drink choice to have for your festive gathering, you can still have a boozy version for those who are interested. With this in mind, you can have a few different liquor choices on hand — such as Bailey's, Kahlua, or rum — for guests to add a shot (or two) to their hot chocolate. There are even options like vanilla vodka or cinnamon cream rum that would pair beautifully with just about any flavor of hot chocolate.

What good is it to have several hot chocolate options to choose from without a variety of toppings to go with it? For the toppings, you can set up a table nearby with all of the options for your guests to choose from. Whipped cream is a must, of course, but you can even include flavored whipped cream — caramel or peppermint whipped cream would both be on theme for the holiday season. Another must? Marshmallows. You can have mini, regular, and jumbo marshmallows available for your guests to choose between.

Then, some guests might want to add some chocolate chips to their mug of hot cocoa for some extra chocolatey goodness. For variety, you can provide dark, milk, and white chocolate chips. Along with regular chocolate chips, if you really want to impress your guests, you can also have butterscotch chips and caramel chips on the table as options. For the guests who have the peppermint hot chocolate — or anyone who wants to add some peppermint flavor — you can have full candy canes as well at the topping bar. Finally, you will probably want to have some chocolate sauce and caramel sauce that you can easily make yourself in case guests want to drizzle it over their whipped cream as the final touch.