Hot chocolate was once a status symbol. How to make it right

What did the most feared criminal in 18th century London drink?

Hot chocolate.

"The chocolate-houses are his undoing." So Macheath, king of the underworld, is described by one of the characters in John Gay's 1728 hit play "The Beggar's Opera." Not gin. Not whiskey. Hot chocolate.

Which shows you how far hot chocolate has come, in 300 years.

From the drink of aristocrats, and of hooligans like Macheath putting on aristocratic airs, hot chocolate has become every child's innocent pleasure, every adult's comfort (a nip of Bailey's Irish Cream doesn't hurt).

"It's especially comforting when dealing with the cold," said Stephen Krensky, author of "The Sweet Story of Hot Chocolate!" (a children's book).

"It's not a comfort food, but a comfort drink," Krensky said. "It's up there with meatloaf."

What ski trip would be complete without hot chocolate in the lodge? What is any winter's day without a roaring fire, a throw blanket, and a mug of warm cocoa?

What are whipped cream, marshmallows and cinnamon sticks for, if not to garnish a steaming cup of "xocalatl," as the Aztecs called it? It is the very emblem of cold-day cheer.

Have it your way

"If you drink it the right way it's such an amazing pleasure," said Michael Turback, author of "Hot Chocolate" and "Hot Cocoa Comfort."

Originally a restaurateur, and originally from New Jersey (South Amboy and Sea Bright), Turback, in his books, can show you how to make everything from ginger-caramel hot chocolate to peanut butter hot chocolate to Chinese five-spice hot chocolate.

"Hot Chocolate" by Michael Turback

But plain or fancy, hot chocolate is one of the things we can all look forward to, in a season of small miseries. Whatever else is going wrong — colds, shoveling, icy roads, lost mittens — we can all enjoy a cup of cocoa. "It cuts across ages, genders, lifestyles," Krensky said. "It's universal."

And that's one of the big things that has changed about hot chocolate, since Columbus brought the bean back with him from the New World in 1502.

"Chocolate was not for the common folks," Turback said. "Only upper-class people."

The original chocoholics

There was one thing nearly every European agreed about, when they first tasted — 500 years ago — the drink that the indigenous people of central and south America made from the cacao bean.

It was disgusting.

cacao beans

"Nauseous," said Sir Hans Sloane, in the 17th century, when he had his first taste in Jamaica. "Loathsome to such as are not acquainted with it, having a scum or froth that is very unpleasant," said José de Acosta, a Spanish missionary of the 16th century.

"The drink the Aztecs made is very different from what we think of now, but it was based on the cocoa bean," Turback said. "They added a lot of fiery spices and ingredients we don't even probably remember."

Michael Turback

Yet there had to be something to it, if the locals prized it as a status symbol, allowed only their highborn to drink it, and even used cacao beans as currency. "The food of the gods," they called it.

So first the Spanish, and then other Europeans, began to tinker with it, seeing if they could adjust it to the European taste buds.

"Europeans couldn't drink it, so they began adding their own cinnamons and other spices to make it more palatable," Turback said.

Rich chocolate for rich people

From the court of Spain, chocolate traveled to the rest of Europe — always as a delicacy that only the rich could indulge in. In London, chocolate houses vied with coffeehouses as the favorite haunt of wealthy layabouts. In Paris, the aristocrats of Louis XVI's court had whole retinue of servants whose only job was to serve the master's chocolate.

The Village Blend in Sloatsburg offers an array of hot chocolate options in addition to specialty coffees.

"It took four men, all four ablaze with gorgeous decoration...to conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur's lips," Charles Dickens scathingly wrote in "A Tale of Two Cities."

"One lacquey carried the chocolate-pot into the sacred presence; a second, milled and frothed the chocolate with the little instrument he bore for that function; a third, presented the favoured napkin; a fourth... poured the chocolate out."

Sacre bleu! No wonder the peasants revolted.

It all changed in 1828, when a Dutch chemist named Coenraad Johannes van Houten invented a press that removed the cocoa butter from the cacao bean — thus leaving a powder that was relatively cheap, and easy to mix with water. "It became democratized," Turback said.

The entire modern chocolate industry — from chocolate bars to packets of Swiss Miss — begins with this so called "Dutch-processed" chocolate. "Maybe you've heard the term 'dutching,' " he said. "That's where that expression comes from."

Chocolate for children

By the end of the 19th century, hot chocolate was very much more affordable. It had also been very much rebranded as a kids' drink.

"Now is the hour when children in their homes are a-bed; their lips bright-browned with the good-night chocolate," rhapsodizes the unspeakable Captain Hook in "Peter Pan" (1904).

"It became more of a children's drink when coffee became more a part of our culture," Turback said. "Adults drink the coffee; children drink the cocoa."

Yet hot chocolate still has its adult fans — especially in Europe.

Here's how to make it right

A distinction is to be made, Turback said, between "cocoa" — the thin sweet stuff we mix from packets and serve by the mugful to kids — and "hot chocolate," a much thicker, richer concoction that is served in demitasse cups like espresso, and often spooned rather than sipped.

"It has a thicker, creamier and more luxurious texture," he said. "I always say hot cocoa is cozy, hot chocolate is indulgent."

But even the children's cocoa is often more childish than it needs to be. If Turback has one piece of advice for parents, it's this: make your hot cocoa from unsweetened chocolate. Then sweeten it to taste.

"When you buy hot cocoa in a package, in a typical grocery store, I think it's literally half-sugar, half-cocoa," he said. "I don't know if you want to load your kids up with sugar. God knows we American put too much in everything.

"If you put just a tiny bit of sugar into your cocoa, it's so much more satisfying to experience it that way."