A very warm, thick chocolate sauce used as a topping for sundaes (not to be confused with “chocolate syrup”—see entry, “Chocolate Sundae”). Too often these days a just-barely warm or even room-temperature sauce is passed off as “hot fudge.” When making actual fudge candy, the ingredients are of course heated together to over 200 degrees F. Originally, hot fudge for ice cream sundaes was literally “hot fudge.” Until just recently, this was still the case at “At The Hop” ice cream parlor in Bath, New Hampshire, which obtained its hot fudge from the fudge-making operation next door in The Brick Store (itself the oldest general store in the country).