Sir Hans Sloane, an Irish physician, scientist, and botanist, has been credited as the inventor of chocolate milk. However, research shows that Jamaicans were the first to create chocolate milk.

According to the Natural History Museum, in 1687, Sloane was offered the chance to travel to Jamaica as a physician to the 2nd Duke of Albermarle. He spent 15 months in Jamaica, and during his time, he studied the local plants and animals. He was also introduced to cocoa as a drink that was popular amongst the locals. Upon drinking it, however, he became nauseous, so he mixed it with milk to make it more palatable.

The Natural History Museum continued with the following:

He brought this chocolate recipe back to England where it was manufactured and at first sold by apothecaries as a medicine. Eventually, in the nineteenth century, it was being taken up by Messrs Cadbury who manufactured chocolate using Sloane’s recipe.

The Smithsonian Magazine referenced historian Jame Delbougo, who argued that Jamaicans were brewing “a hot beverage brewed from shavings of freshly harvested cacao, boiled with milk and cinnamon” as far back as 1494. So the idea that no one added milk to the chocolate mixture before Sloane isn’t believable, he just received the accreditation.

Jamaicans are also rumored to have been the first to create milk chocolate, which I give the most honorable salute for doing so.

Until Next Time…

(Sources)

Photo Credit: My Recipes

Eveleth, R. (2014, February 12). Chocolate Milk Was Invented in Jamaica. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/chocolate-milk-was-invented-jamaica-180949734/. 

About Sir Hans Sloane. Natural History Museum. (n.d.). https://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/botanical-collections/sloane-herbarium/about-sloane/index.html. 

Was chocolate milk invented in Jamaica? Loop. (2021, June 27). https://cayman.loopnews.com/content/was-chocolate-milk-invented-jamaica.