When the clocks roll back an hour, hot chocolate season pours right into our minds. Whipped cream, marshmallows, alternative milks, etc. add unique variations to this heartwarming cold weather treat. While compared against hot apple cider, Chick-Fil-A’s hand-spun Peppermint Chip Milkshake or Starbucks’ holiday drinks, hot chocolate provides a sense of community hardly any other drink can, bringing people together on a blustery winter day with a sweet and widely popular drink. With coffee shops sprawling in Vienna, the debate over Vienna’s supreme hot chocolate has only intensified. We ranked them.

5: Magnolia Dessert Bar & Coffee

There was nothing negative to say about the flavors themselves. A solid hot chocolate without an overpowering sweetness, good milk chocolate flavor and crafted at the right temperature. But the price? Yikes. $6 after tax for an 8oz cup of hot chocolate with a lid that could not even stay on the cup. At the price, with no whipped cream, it was hard to justify elevating Magnolia’s hot chocolate with a middle-of-the-pack taste.

4: Vienna Simply Social Coffee

Simply Social is simply the safe bet. A very good dark chocolate hot chocolate that surprisingly was not overly rich. Simply Social only has dark and white chocolate, no milk, but the dark chocolate felt like more of a hybrid between standard milk and dark, which I appreciated. It’s a great go-to option when looking for a hot chocolate that will appeal to the masses, but lacked a standout feature that the top three had.

3: Crepe Amour

Nutella: the difference-maker and true elevator of Crepe Amour’s hazelnut hot chocolate. Without the Nutella, the beverage hovers just below Simply Social, lacking the chocolatey flavor that was present in Simply Social’s hot chocolate. The Nutella meshes well with the chocolate and is most emphasized in the aftertaste with each sip. The freshness and taste of the chocolate slides this below the top two, but the hazelnut hot chocolate is by far the most unique in Vienna.

2: Cocoa Vienna

A very close second. If you are looking for the best chocolate in your hot chocolate, this is the place to go. Seeing them handcraft the drink and incorporate their delicious chocolate into the beverage augmented my appreciation for it. I was pleasantly surprised that it was not overloaded with chocolate but rather quite balanced in the chocolate/milk ratio. Because Cocoa Vienna’s hot chocolate was neck-and-neck with the number one choice, value became the tiebreaker, costing roughly $4.50 for 12 oz.

1: Caffe Amouri Coffee Roaster

Caffe Amouri takes the hot chocolate cake. It was the quintessential brewed beverage. Their Belgian Hot Chocolate is the best balance of chocolate to milk with whipped cream on top. Hot chocolate can sometimes create a feeling of just taking a couple sips before putting your drink down, but Caffe Amouri’s drink begs you to chug the entire cup before taking a breath. They use chocolate disks and melt them into the milk to create their drink, providing just the right amount of sweetness for a price of just over $5 for 16 oz of hot chocolate.