Iced Cocoa
Make according to recipe for plain cocoa and chill thoroughly. Put cracked ice in a tall glass and pour in one half glass of cocoa, then fill up with cold milk. Or one fourth glass of cocoa may be used and three fourths soda water.
A two-line drink that depends entirely on the cocoa base it refers back to, and on that base being cooked properly before it is chilled.
- The base matters most"plain cocoa" in books of this period usually means cocoa powder and sugar first blended to a paste with a little boiling water and simmered briefly, then thinned with milk. Skipping that brief cooking tends to leave the drink chalky once cold.
- Chill thoroughly, and strainCocoa left to cool uncovered forms a skin and cocoa solids settle to the bottom. Cover the surface directly, chill several hours, then whisk or strain before pouring.
- Sweeten while hotSugar dissolves in the hot base, not in the cold glass. Cold cocoa also tastes noticeably less sweet than the same mixture warm, so make the base a touch sweeter than you would drink hot.
- Cocoa powder has changedNatural cocoa, sharp and fruity, was the usual American product in this period. Dutch-process cocoa, now common, is darker and milder and will give a smoother but flatter drink. Either works; they are not interchangeable in flavour.
- The two versionsHalf cocoa and half cold milk gives a chocolate milk. One quarter cocoa to three quarters soda water gives something closer to a soda-fountain drink, thinner and more bitter, and it needs the sweeter base to stand up.
- Cracked iceCracked ice from a block dilutes faster than modern cubes. If you want the original proportions to hold, use large cubes or chill the glass instead.
- YieldOne tall glass; if that glass is taken as 10 to 12 oz, the milk version uses about half of it as cocoa base and the soda version about a quarter.
The soda fountain, a well-established American institution by the early twentieth century, is written all over this one, and the two variants given here are exactly the fountain's two habits: the milk drink and the carbonated one, built in the glass rather than shaken. Iced cocoa itself needs no invention story; it is simply the everyday breakfast cocoa of the period poured over ice.