DOTD For Monday, December 8, 2025

A Chocolaty Drink, That Does A Heck Of A Job!

Today’s DOTD - Drink Of The Day - is a Brownie Cocktail, inspired by National Brownie Day.

As we all know, brownies are rich, cakey squares of chocolaty deliciousness. The brownie is the baked good that most people love and today, on National Brownie Day, we get to celebrate it.

Brownies haven’t always existed. Legend says that the first brownie was created at Chicago’s legendary Palmer House Hotel in 1893.

Mrs Bertha Palmer, the wife of hotel magnate Potter Palmer and a prominent socialite, asked the hotel’s resident pastry chef to create a small dessert with a cake-like consistency to go in boxed lunches for the ladies attending the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The result was a brownie with walnuts and an apricot glaze, and the same recipe is used at the hotel to this day.

However, it wasn’t until the turn of the twentieth century that recipes for modern-style chocolate brownies began to appear in print. At that time, an extra egg and square of chocolate were added, giving the brownie a richer, more fudgy consistency.

Other interesting facts about brownies, include

• It’s estimated that Americans consume almost 1.5 billion brownies every year.

• The world’s largest brownie - made from 210 packs of Betty Crocker brownie mix, 504 eggs, 6.1 gallons of vegetable oil and 2.5 gallons of water - was baked in Saudi Arabia in September 2022 and weighed in at a whopping 335.1 pounds.

• You can add almost anything to brownies, but walnuts are the most popular add-in ingredient.

Of course, you can’t mention brownies in a bar about politics without also mentioning the phrase that originated from a comment that then-President George W. Bush made to then-FEMA Director Michael Brown during the botched response to Hurricane Katrina on September 2, 2005.

“Heckuva job, Brownie,” was a phrase that Bush intended it as praise, though it became a widely criticized and iconic symbol of the failures of the Bush administration’s incompetent response to the massive flooding and devastation from Hurricane Katrina. Brown resigned 10 days after that comment was made, and he went on to become a corporate consultant, corporate executive, and eventually a political talk radio host.

Meanwhile, the phrase that made him infamous became legendary as a sarcastic comment aimed at any clear & outstanding failures in performance &/or leadership.

Thankfully, this drink isn’t the bad kind of Brownie. It’s the kind of brownie that will likely lead your recipe list of desert drinks going forward with competence and a bit of style.

Ingredients

Here’s what you’re going to need for this drink: