It being the Holiday season I decided to treat myself to some cocoa. I know many of you will laugh at that being a treat; but whatever. I had already completed all my shopping so I thought “Yipee I’ll buy some exotic cocoa mix and let Amazon deliver it.” UPS does their thing. I read the label. Mix into HEATED MILK??? WTHeck? I must go out to the store:(. I can not recall the last time I purchased milk. So I got a quart. I made the cocoa, OK. The quart was good for 4 servings and it is all gone. So today I was feeling chocolatey and decided to just try it with plain water. It was better! Ha!
I don’t really like milk, so I think everything’s better without it (except coffee).
Yesterday I was making some nice instant hot chocolate (with water) and almost added some eggnog just to see how that would do, but then I decided not to give myself instant diabetes. 
Isn’t Mexican hot chocolate made with coffee. I love any thing chocolate. So I would try it either way and probably love it.
My old uncle used to put Kailua (msp) in his coffee about 7am everyday! That is hardcore, I tell ya.
Albertson’s used to have* a house brand of instant cocoa that said to add it to milk, but it was fine, in fact great, if you just added hot water. I can’t say I liked it better, because I never tried it with milk, because I don’t drink milk. I particularly don’t drink hot milk. Bonus, without milk, 75 calories per serving. (So I guess they knew that some people were preparing it without milk.)
I put Kahlua in my coffee. Not the morning dose, but sometimes later in the day. Yum.
*And may still, but there is no longer an Albertson’s in my range. There is a Safeway but I haven’t seen Albertson’s brands there yet.
I don’t drink a lot of milk, but cocoa must be with milk for me. I know the mixes have powdered milk in them, but I think they’re terrible unless made with milk instead of water.
Not that I know of. As I’ve always had it, it’s a spiced hot chocolate. I don’t recall it ever having coffee in it, but I suppose it’s possible some variation does.
It is traditionally made with water, but we are not talking of instant powder mixes but the real thing.
It has even been the title of a novel, later made into a movies. Laura Esquivel’s “Como Agua para Chocolate”. It is an expression meaning someone is boiling hot (like the water used for preparing chocolate) with anger.
Kahlua in my coffee? Yum. Next year that will be my Holiday indulgence.
In the 1890s a London clergyman campaigned to have cocoa banned … because, he said, it was popular with criminals.
I make Mexican hot chocolate with water, but then add a couple teaspoons of heavy cream. Milk doesn’t cut it. I definitely think that both the chocolate and the spices release their flavor better if added to boiled water first, and allowed to sit for a bit before the cream is added. But then I think pretty much everything is better with cream.
The proper way is to add cocoa butter or butter from goat’s milk. Modern Mexicans mostly use condensed milk for both the sugar and the fat.
That explains it.
I don’t like milk on cereal. It makes hot cereal cold and cold cereal soggy.
I like hot cereal with dried fruit and nuts in it, and cold cereal mixed with yoghurt.
How does it make hot cereal cold? Don’t you use hot milk for hot cereal? (No objection to your preferences; I just don’t understand that statement.)
The best cocoa mix I’ve had is Swiss Miss Simply Cocoa - Dark Chocolate. You have to make it with milk. My dad would make us cocoa with real cocoa powder - I remember it being amazing. I tried to do it a couple of times and failed miserably. Swiss Miss Simply Cocoa is pretty darn close. I buy a box every time I go shopping because I’m afraid it will be discontinued all of a sudden.