Chocolate Syrup Was Once Medicine

It was thousands of years ago when people of the Americas learned to isolate cocoa from the cacao plant. They drank it as a liquid for energy and nutrition, and even though it wasn't sweetened, we can imagine that some of them just liked it. Cocoa came to Europe, where it competed with coffee and tea as an energizing drink. Then someone got the bright idea to add sugar. Score!

While chocolate has been used as a medicine off and on, it was mainly useful for masking the awful taste of opium, cocaine, and other everyday medicines. The easiest way to blend it with these drugs was to make chocolate into a syrup. When medicine stopped being elixirs and became pills, all the pharmacists needed to find new ways to use the chocolate syrup they were already making, and that's how we got all kinds of soda fountain treats. Weird History Food weaves together the history of chocolate and chocolate syrup with the history of medicines, which intersect at several points. Even today, chocolate is an easy way to make yourself feel better.