Best Hot Chocolate
We tried Swiss Miss, Mexican hot chocolates, Guittard, and more. Here's how they fared in our evaluations.
By Angela Lashbrook
East Coast winters are brutal, especially for Californians like myself accustomed to 50° F January temperatures. Maintaining a warm, cozy atmosphere—by snuggling up under a comfortable blanket, warming up with a pair of toasty slippers, or decking out my apartment post-Thanksgiving with a Christmas tree and other holiday decorations—is probably 80 percent responsible for my ability to survive from November until April (gratitude also goes out to my hideous, but critical, SAD lamp).
But hands-down, my favorite way to make the cold season more bearable is with an occasional mug of hot chocolate. The lightly sweet, creamy beverage was a mainstay of the mild California winters of my childhood, and I’m particularly grateful for it now that I’m shivering for five months a year on the Eastern Seaboard.
Particularly because hot chocolate is a precious treat, and one that’s not super healthy in excess, we set out to discover which hot chocolates deserve a spot in front of your fireplace and which you can toss to the curb. The unfortunate truth is that not all hot chocolate (or hot cocoa, depending on the recipe) is created equal, and while my fellow evaluators and I were going from one hot chocolatey drink to another in the service of our readers, we discovered this somewhat painfully.
Let our pain be your gain, and read on for our favorite hot chocolates that we think you and your family will love—and which ones your children will cherish reminding you that you inflicted upon them for decades to come.
Editor’s Choice: Guittard Grand Cacao Drinking Chocolate
As long as you add enough mix, this Guittard drinking chocolate is a winner.
Photo: Guittard
Price: $7.99 for 10 ounces
Where to buy: Amazon, Fresh Direct
This hot chocolate, a modern adaptation of the original introduced in 1900 and served at San Francisco’s famous seaside restaurant Cliff House, according to Guittard, is a classic for a reason. It’s super adaptable; the instructions specify between 1 and 4 tablespoons of chocolate for a cup of milk, so you can adjust to taste. I was unimpressed with just 1 tablespoon, but 3 tablespoons made for a rich, flavorful drink that was sweet enough for kids, but not so sweet that it causes the mouth to pucker.
“After 1 tablespoon (as suggested) it felt a bit light. But then I added two more and it really hit the spot,” says Joanne Chen, a deputy content editor at Consumer Reports and a hot chocolate evaluator. “It was rich, bodacious, and just sweet enough.” Prepare to be disappointed with 1 tablespoon. Althea Chang-Cook, an associate director of content at Consumer Reports and another evaluator, wrote, brutally, that with 1 tablespoon, “I’m not sure how anyone could find it worth it to drink a hot chocolate so bland.” But with 3 tablespoons, she said, it was “excellent. With three, I can taste the chocolate better, and it’s pretty clearly good quality.”
It is, however, a bit labor-intensive. Instructions require that users continually whisk the chocolate in milk in a pan over the stove, which makes for a super smooth drink, but might surprise some who are used to popping a cup in the microwave and dumping in a packet of mix. You could probably get away with making this the easy way, but it wouldn’t be quite as silky and you may end up with some chunks of chocolate wasted at the bottom of the cup.
The Best Spiced Hot Chocolate: La Monarca Mexican Hot Chocolate
La Monarca's Mexican hot chocolate has the perfect amount of cinnamon.
Photo: La Monarca
Price: $8 for 8 ounces
Where to buy: Amazon, World Market
I was delighted when I took a sip of this. The mix, from a Southern California bakery started by two Stanford grads who grew up in Monterrey, Mexico, makes a full-bodied, complex Mexican-style hot chocolate that won’t overload the taste buds with spice. Rather, the cinnamon in this mix mingles beautifully with the chocolate, allowing both flavors to come through in harmony. Joanne says that La Monarca “has a brightness, but with a cinnamon twist.” Althea calls it “best of the bunch,” though notes that a heaping tablespoon of chocolate in the milk will make for a richer, more chocolatey drink than a tablespoon that’s been leveled off.
Though this hot chocolate isn’t overwhelmingly spiced, it obviously won’t appeal to those who don’t like, or are unprepared for, cinnamon in their drink. “I’ll admit—the cinnamon throws me off a bit,” says Tanya Christian, a reporter at Consumer Reports and a hot chocolate evaluator. However, her fiancé, who assisted her with her evaluations, likes La Monarca the best. My husband liked it as well, calling it “interesting” (in a good way).
I adore cinnamon, so while the Guittard hot chocolate performed best with our evaluators, this is the hot chocolate I’ll reach for this winter.
The Best for Kids or Nostalgic Adults: Swiss Miss Marshmallow Hot Cocoa Mix
Swiss Miss: for your inner child (or actual child).
Photo: Swiss Miss
Price: $3.29 for eight packs (total 11.04 ounces)
Where to buy: Amazon, Fresh Direct
When I first took a sip of this, I was transported directly back to childhood, standing in my parents’ kitchen before the crowded pantry to fish out a packet of Swiss Miss. I was actually startled by how vividly and clearly that taste of Swiss Miss revealed memories that I’d forgotten.
Swiss Miss is distinctive; it tastes somewhat like melted Hershey’s Kisses. The flavor is more sweet than chocolatey, with no hint of the dark chocolate bitterness that you’ll find in the Guittard or La Monarca. It’s super easy to make—just mix the packet into hot milk or water (though we recommend milk; you’ll get a more substantial taste) and you’re good to go. A heads-up for the unfamiliar: The marshmallows are tiny, and barely make an impression beyond the occasional silky sweetness. Marshmallow lovers will want to add their own.
The Swiss Miss isn’t for everyone. My husband found it far too sugary, and if I hadn’t grown up on it, I likely would have too. As it stands, I did drink this as a kid, and if I ever have children, I can imagine tossing a box of this into a shopping cart for the occasional treat. “This is geared for kids and my son confirmed it,” says Valerie Pedrozo, an associate director of data governance at Consumer Reports and a hot chocolate evaluator. Her son loves it so much, he has a cup almost every day: “He says it’s chocolatey and he likes the marshmallows.” Will she buy it again? “Yes, for my son.”
A Drinking Chocolate for Adventurous Palates: Spicewalla Mexican Hot Chocolate
Brace yourself for Spicewalla's punchy hot chocolate.
Photo: Spicewalla
Price: $14.99 for 4.1 ounces
Where to buy: Spicewalla
You either love this hot chocolate or you hate it. It is quite spicy—I was surprised, and I have such a palate for spice that I once ended up in the hospital from gastritis because I overdid it on some habanero salsa. This likely won’t send most to the hospital, but it’s definitely a bit spicier than what you might expect from a spicy hot chocolate, which tends to be on the milder side of the Scoville scale, which measures a pepper’s pungency and heat. (The scale ranges from 0 to 2 million Scoville heat units—from mild bell peppers to extremely hot Carolina Reapers.) It certainly makes sense how almost over-the-top spicy this hot chocolate is, considering Spicewalla is first and foremost a spice company.
My surprise was mixed with pleasure—clearly, I loved this, and other folks who love a truly spicy hot chocolate likely will as well. But those who don’t want their chilis and their chocolate to come within a mile of each other, such as my husband, will not want to venture here. Nor should folks who prefer their spicy hot chocolate to be merely grazed with chili or prefer sweeter spices such as cinnamon and ginger.
“It’s a bit too spicy for me to regularly enjoy. I’d consider giving it to someone as a gift if I know they like spicy things,” says Althea, who mentions that her husband, who has a high spice tolerance, found the spice to be on the milder side. “Guess it depends on the person,” she says.
This is also a very rich hot chocolate, almost like a European-style drinking chocolate; even spice enthusiasts like me will want to keep their beverage quite small—say, 3 or 4 ounces—to avoid overdoing it.
A Hot Chocolate for a Crowd: Ibarra Chocolate Genuine Mexican Chocolate
Serve this hot chocolate at your holiday party.
Photo: Ibarra
Price: $2.59 for 12.6 ounces
Where to buy: Target, Walmart
If you want a cozy, sweet beverage to serve at a holiday party, you (and your guests) will be well-served by the hot chocolate from the Mexican chocolate company Ibarra. This hot chocolate is lightly sprinkled with cinnamon which makes it more interesting and complex than your standard sweet hot chocolate. It comes in large discs that are whisked in milk on the stove. One tablet of chocolate is good for 4 cups of milk, and the tablet melts pretty quickly and easily, “much to my surprise, since the mix is in a tablet form,” says Valerie.
Still, it’s a rather labor-intensive process, and you need to be somewhat committed to actually make this drink. The end result is a very lightly cinnamony, quite sweet chocolate that will please milk chocolate fans, though dark chocolate fans and others who are averse to super-sweet desserts will probably find it cloying. It’s also mildly difficult to make merely one cup of this, rather than four, as the chocolate discs are very difficult to cut into quarters. I had to lean on my knife to score the pieces on both sides, then break it with my hands. It is messy and requires force. It is not a task you want to assign to a child or someone else with terrible knife skills.
Although I wouldn’t entrust a child with making a cup of this themselves, it makes an excellent hot chocolate for a crowd of kids. The subtle cinnamon flavor is unlikely to send many running, although those who are particularly sensitive to any level of spice in their chocolate may shy away.
The Tragic Flop: Dandelion Chocolate Hot Chocolate Mix
Dandelion's hot chocolate wasn't what we expected.
Photo: Dandelion
Price: $18 for 5.5 ounces
Where to buy: Dandelion
Color us confused. What happened here? We adored Dandelion Chocolate’s Single-Origin Truffle Collection—a box of nuanced, extremely high-quality chocolate truffles—so I expected that my team of evaluators and I would feel similarly about the company’s pricey (about $4 a cup) hot chocolate mix. But it was not to be so.
“I expected more from a hot chocolate with such fancy presentation: a long brown-tinted glass with a giant cork to seal it,” says Althea. “I gave some to my husband and he said ‘this one’s not that great.’” Multiple evaluators mentioned that the mix is pretty hard to integrate into milk, and requires as vigorous, if not even more vigorous, mixing than the Ibarra (Ibarra has a good excuse, at least: it comes in a solid tablet form).
It’s not at all sweet, and as someone who typically prefers my chocolates and other desserts to be more bitter, more tart, or more nutty rather than sweet, I was shocked to find that even I was tempted to add sugar to this. It has an overpowering acidity that would surely work in chocolate bar format, but doesn’t work in a beverage. And there’s a strange, unpleasant plasticky flavor that was distracting.
Valerie’s son doesn’t like it much, she says, “because it’s not sweet.” On the plus side, “He does say that it smells like chocolate."
How We Evaluated These Hot Chocolates
My fearless chocolate-drinking team consisted of five CR staffers, including me. We made each drink according to the packaging instructions, which included milk-to-chocolate ratios and instructions for heating the milk and stirring the mix. Each of us kept the type of milk consistent across hot chocolates—for example, I used Chobani Oatmilk Original in each, while Althea used Organic Valley Lactose-Free Whole Milk. We then judged these brands according to a few criteria (and sipped seltzer between tastings to cleanse our palates):
Does the mix dissolve easily and smoothly into milk? Or is it chunky or gritty, even after stirring well?
Is the mix pleasantly chocolatey?
Is the mix creamy?
Is the mix too sweet, or not sweet enough?
Are the instructions clear?
Who is the ideal audience for this hot chocolate?
For spicy hot chocolate: How do you feel about the spiciness level of this mix? (This can mean both “hot” spicy and “spiced” spicy, such as cinnamon or ginger flavor.)
Would you buy this again?
Cacao bean, anyone?
Photo: Victoria Popova/Getty Images
A Little History of Hot Chocolate
Hot chocolate is an ancient drink. Interestingly, the beverage precedes the sweet, solid versions of chocolate we snack on today. “Hot chocolate has been made for literally thousands of years, stretching back to the Olmecs, where it was made with ground cocoa beans, water, and perhaps some spices,” says Art Pollard, the owner at the Utah-based chocolate company Amano Artisan Chocolate.
The Olmec civilization thrived near modern-day Tabasco and Veracruz in southern Mexico from around 1200 BCE to 400 BCE. The drink persisted for thousands of years and was still a popular beverage among the Aztecs, who lived in central and southern Mexico between the 14th and 16th centuries. It was bitter, rather than sweet, and often served cold. The Aztecs drank it primarily as a ceremonial and medicinal beverage, and saw it as treating toothaches, diarrhea, and fever.
Evidence suggests that the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés tried chocolate around the year 1518 in the court of Montezuma II, the emperor of the Aztecs. Though the Spanish soldiers supposedly didn’t like the drink much, Cortés was intrigued by the fact that Montezuma reportedly drank it 50 times a day (sheesh), so decided to bring it back to Spain and see what could be done with it there.
“After the Spanish brought cocoa beans back from their visits to Central and South America, hot chocolate found its way into cafes throughout Europe,” says Pollard. In Spain, the drink transformed more closely into the beverage we drink today: served sweet, frothy, and hot. Chocolate houses became popular gathering places for intellectuals, politicians, and other prominent thinkers in Europe and the United States, which began its love affair with chocolate in the late 17th century.
Chocolate remained a beverage “until roughly the mid-19th century when the first widespread production of ‘modern’ eating chocolates and confectionery applications began to appear,” says Michael Laiskonis, a chef at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City.
Today, European drinking chocolate—particularly in France and Spain—is richer and creamier than what is commonly drunk in the United States, says Pollard, who notes that it’s typically served in smaller quantities, too. Drinking chocolate remains part of Mexican and other Central American cuisines, according to Laiskonis. “In some regions, it’s prepared by small artisans—and sometimes in the home—where a special lavado, or unfermented cacao, is used,” he says. “Water, not milk, is often the base, as was typical in ancient Mayan and Aztec recipes.”
The Difference Between Hot Chocolate and Hot Cocoa
Though many of us tend to use the terms hot chocolate and hot cocoa interchangeably, they’re not technically the same thing. “Since the FDA defines cocoa and chocolate (Code of Federal Regulations, Title 21, Chapter 1, Subchapter B, Part 163) differently, we can use this as a guide,” says Alan McClure, PhD, a food scientist and founder of Patric Food & Beverage Development. “Hot cocoa will generally include much less natural cacao fat—also called cocoa butter—than would hot chocolate. Hot chocolate is therefore a richer sensory experience."
If you wanted to make hot cocoa at home from scratch, you would add sugar and unsweetened cocoa powder, such as Droste cocoa, and mix it into hot milk. For hot chocolate, you’d take whatever chocolate bar or chocolate nibs that you prefer and whisk it into simmering milk or water, no sugar necessary.
Expert Tips for the Best Cup of Hot Chocolate
You can certainly add your favorite hot chocolate mix to some hot milk and call it a day, and if you’re trying a new brand, it might be good to keep it simple on the first go. But there’s no need to keep it so simple, especially if you intend to make it a semi-regular part of your winter rotation.
Though I haven’t tried Pollard’s method for making a gorgeous hot chocolate yet, I likely will before the year is out.
“Heat up the water or milk that you are going to use for your hot chocolate or hot cocoa. Put your mix in your cup. Add just enough liquid to your mix to wet it. Stir until it makes a paste,” he says. “Add a bit more liquid and stir. Keep adding liquid and stirring until the desired amount is achieved.” With this method, you can more easily control the consistency of your drink—if you like a thinner, milder hot chocolate, add more milk; if you prefer your beverage on the richer side, add less. It also results in a smoother drink with fewer chunks of chocolate or cocoa, says Pollard.
McClure recommends adding cayenne or cinnamon for a kick, while Pollard says to throw in a pinch of sea salt to bring out more flavor from the drink. And consider using half and half instead of milk, says McClure, “then split the serving in two and share with someone who loves hot cocoa as much as you do!”
A mini cup of hot chocolate made with half and half has another benefit: less chocolate. Some research has shown that some cocoa powder and dark chocolate may contain heavy metals, such as cadmium and lead. What I can say is that after drinking six different hot chocolates in a row, I’m going to cool it for a while. One month, maybe two, before I’m ready to experiment with a little cayenne in my cup of Guittard hot chocolate, as a treat.
This product evaluation is part of Consumer Reports’ Outside the Labs reviews program, which is separate from our laboratory testing and ratings. Our Outside the Labs reviews are performed at home and in other native settings by individuals, including our journalists, with specialized subject matter experience or familiarity and are designed to offer another important perspective for consumers as they shop. While the products or services mentioned in this article might not currently be in CR’s ratings, they could eventually be tested in our laboratories and rated according to an objective, scientific protocol.
Like all CR evaluations of products and services, our Outside the Labs reviews are independent and free from advertising. If you’d like to learn more about the criteria for our lab testing, please go to CR’s Research & Testing page.
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