Co-branding a milk product with Yoo-hoo isn't exactly aiming for the stars from a flavor standpoint. That said, the branding is eye-catching and I'm embarrassed to say I was excited to buy a flat (12-pack) of this and crack one open. And be careful when you do that-- this stuff is pretty foamy if opening after a brief shake. After the first sip, I was upset to have purchased a whole flat. It's nasty. there's an upfront chemical / metallic quality that stays with you, as does the chalky / astringent mouthfeel that plagues each sip. The 'chocolate' presence is oversweet and fleeting. Does it taste like Yoo-hoo? No. Yoo-hoo is smooth, sweet, watery chocolate fluid with minimal other baggage. This stuff is moving in for a few months and doesn't plan on doing much laundry.

There's a sourness that is probably meant to simulate chocolate flavor, but it does nothing aside from highlight the other phony qualities going on here, mainly the sweetness and texture. It's a smooth enough way to get 32g of protein, I concede, but it's nothing that will please your tastebuds in the process, and you'll find yourself drinking this quickly, not out of enjoyment, but more to get it out of the way so you can put something else in your mouth that will be more satisfying. That said, this has a slight saltiness that the cookies & cream version does not, and that helps a little.

Tastes like sweet plastic, with a slight astringency on the back end. It feels smooth and glides down the palate pretty quickly, but the fugazi sweetener lingers a bit too long and taints any 'cookies & cream' flavor that there might be. And there might not be. This isn't good.

Initially feels more balanced from a salty/sweet standpoint, which is an improvement, but the sweetener doesn't age well over the course of the sip and it leads to a drying sensation in the third act. There is a modest cookies & cream flavor that you can find if you sift through its other components thoroughly enough-- though careful, intentional sipping of this stuff likely not intended, and certainly not recommended. If people are this desperate for 30g of protein, I guess they're willing to brave the elements in the name of... better health? Ok.

Gone is the searing, face-altering, chemical spill in a can, in favor of a significantly muted, bland, and more pleasantly palatable version of Slate. This actually surprised me when I first tried it, in a positive, found-a-five-dollar-bill-in-my-pants-pocket way. They seem to have understood that when taste is bad, less of it is better, and they've righted the ship to the point where this is neither distracting nor off-putting. For high-protein, low carb, canned chocolate milk, this may be as good as it gets.