For ➊6 cl dark Cuban rum*
12 cl milk**
5 ts cocoa powder**
whipped cream*
chocolate shavings*
For the warm version, heat the milk to drinking temperature.
Add rum and cocoa. Stir.
Top with whipped cream and add chocolate shavings.
For the cold version, mix milk and cocoa (or use chocolate milk**). Add rum*. Pour on ice cubes.
*For the original version, use vodka. Omit cream and chocolate shavings. Use brandy instead, or an equal mix of brandy and coffee liquor.
**For the original version, use dark chocolate milk.
When after the Congolese independence in 1960, Patrice Lumumba became prime minister and declared himself a partisan of mild communism, his fate was sealed by murder. In the former motherland Belgium, his name was used to mix a quite racist, but delicious cocktail of chocolate milk and vodka (the Russian influence). After his death, he was considered a martyr by African nations and by the USSR who honored his legacy with a stamp.
The cocktail disappeared in Belgium but lived on in several versions, hot and cold, with rum substituting the vodka (suitable enough, as Cuban fighters were involved in the Congo wars). (Sometimes it is replaced with brandy and/or coffee liquor, omitting the milk).
The warm version comes close to a simple version of the mighty Mexican serpent's chocolate.
