Average two-percent build with nice aesthetics and a lighter cocoa flavor than the attractive medium brown color suggests. The sweet/salty balance feels right, and it's pleasantly bland-- this won't offend anyone save those looking for a cocoa buzz.
All in USA
Royal Riverside Farm Peppermint Cocoa Milk
A flavorful punch to the face in the best sense possible-- so much going on here! Fantastic peppermint flavor throughout that registers upfront and intensifies over the next few seconds, leaving you to bask in a deliciously satisfying and cooling afterglow that feels as good as it tastes. The creamy base and cocoa sweetness expertly play their supporting roles, and you're left with a uniquely tasty treat that leaves a lasting impression (literally and figuratively) on the palate.
Rising Sun Dairy Mocha Milk
Alas-- mocha milk done right! It's well-balanced with both a cocoa and coffee presence, and a sweet/salty ratio appropriately in favor of the latter. The base is still very much milky (as it should be) rather than a watered-down, washed out caricature of what mocha often is. I am a coffee drinker and coffee lover, and I would gladly replace my morning cup of joe with this stuff.
Garry's Meadow Fresh Chocolate Milk
Sharply salty with a buttery, creamy girth that is not for the faint of heart. One of the thicker chocolate milks I've had in recent memory, so fans of an authentically beefy base take notice. The cocoa flavor plays third fiddle after the cream and salt, and it tends to arrive late and leave you wanting a bit more. It's deliciously unique, both from flavor and texture profile, and it doesn't take much to satisfy. The experience ends cordially with a warm and slightly grassy goodbye.
Royal Riverside Farm Chocolate Milk
Chocolaty, creamy, sweet, salty-- all primary chocolate milk flavors are amped up and surprisingly well-balanced given the strength of each. Its creamline base shines in the latter third of the sip, and warmly gilds whatever surface happens to grace. The (relatively) thin viscosity seems to add velocity to the flavor, as it hits early and often and leaves no tastebud unsatisfied. When you eventually reach your last sip-- wait for the buttery grassiness that rounds out the final, deliciously lasting experience.
Rising Sun Dairy Chocolate Milk
An upfront salty hit pops the warm creaminess that continues shine throughout, escorting the malty cocoa flavor everywhere it needs to go. There's a fully-burdened velveteen texture and a uniqueness to the experience, which has real cachet with someone who has had nearly 1,800 different chocolate milks to this point. Overall, an extremely well conceived and executed drinkable dessert.
Umpqua Dairy Reduced Fat Chocolate Milk
Feels a bit more authentic than its whole milk counterpart, but finishes with a slight post-sip drying sensation. The cocoa flavor is right down the middle, and the reduced fat base is adequate for what it's being asked to carry.
Blue Silo Creamery Chocolate Milk
Deliciously well balanced and strong flavor that leads with a salty-sweet-malty cocoa punch that fades swiftly but leaves you with a warm, creamy coating and a lustful desire for the next sip. It's thinner than many of its peers, affording it a bit more alacrity on the palate-- making sure all of your tastebuds are engaged, aroused, and beyond satisfied.
Bennett Family Farm Chocolate Milk
Devastating combination of buttery cream and malty cocoa with a gorgeously appropriate salty snap on the back end, making this one of the best creamline chocolate milks I've had all year. Each sip is a wholly satisfying treat in itself-- buy more than you think you can comfortably store.
Rose Valley Creamery Chocolate Milk
There's a John Wayne-esque quiet confidence that comes through in a chocolate milk that dares to be (traditionally) under-sweet and unapologetically creamy. I would describe the cocoa flavor as a subtle maltiness that plays more of a supporting role to its warm, buttery, 100% grass-fed creamy base. Real chocolate milk should need to be shaken up. Real chocolate milk should treat sweetness with a deft touch. This is the real deal.
Schoch Dairy & Creamery Schocolate Milk
Deliciously buttery creamline base determined to hug each individual tastebud with a warm cocoa embrace. Such a well-balanced concoction that needs nothing more than your time and attention-- don't chug this stuff, don't multitask while drinking it, I would even say don't have it with food (it just gets in the way). Consume this and let it consume you-- you'll be better for it.
Dutch Bros Chocolate Milk
Amped up on all levels-- powerfully (nigh painfully) sweet first, strongly chocolaty next, and a full-fat base that feels overworked carrying all of that flavor. It's delicious in short spurts, possibly gratuitous in a normal 8oz serving. The flavor doesn't age particularly well, as the syrupy sweetness outlasts everything and overstays its oral welcome. I can definitely see why the kids like this, but mature palates be warned.
Alpenrose Swiss Supreme Chocolate Milk
Much more sweet than chocolaty and has a beefy yet accessible 6% base-- which pays dividends in the highly satisfying afterglow. I must say, this is a very unique experience where there's an upfront barrage of sweet, and you think it's going too strongly in the wrong direction, but the cream quickly wrests control of everything else and steers it back on course, leaving you to enjoy a warm, creamy finish for minutes after the sip.
Alpenrose Swiss Style Chocolate Milk
Very lightly but pleasantly chocolaty, and a creamy enough body to shoulder more flavor if it needed to. It has a subtle 'hot cocoa' flavor to it that finishes pretty cleanly and is easy to pour another cup.
Lochmead Farms Reduced Fat Chocolate Milk
Substantial texture and prominent cocoa flavor that leans towards the earthy side. The first part of the sip is the best, as there's a noticeable astringency a few seconds after the swallow that dries out the mouth a little and lends to a chalkier feel that wasn't present up front.
Lochmead Farms Cafe Moooka
Appropriately thin and smooth, and a significantly stronger coffee flavor than cocoa flavor. The coffee flavor feels legit but is not one that matches up well with my preferences. I would describe it as a sour sweetness, with a fairly watery yet astringent finish.
Morning Fresh Farms Lowfat Chocolate Milk
Nicely smooth with a sharp upfront sweetness that trails off to a decently strong cocoa flavor, leaving you in a more favorable and satisfying position than its inauspiciously oversweet kickoff would suggest. That's a lot of language for a modestly above-par lowfat chocolate milk; more than happy to reserve my brevity for some thing more remarkable (good or bad).
Shamrock Farms Mocha Latte Rockin' Protein Energy
Fairly odd stuff, even for the chocolate-adjacent category. It's as though you spilled a cup of cornstarch in your hours-old mug of Folgers. Doesn't have a ton of flavor, but what's there is decidedly more coffee than cocoa. It's undersweet, undersalty, undercreamy, and overstarchy. On the plus side, you could probably use this as the goopy paste in your next paper maché project.
Powerful Chocolate Protein Shake
Mystifying combination of thin/smooth viscosity with a chalky, astringent epilogue-- giving it a medicinal bent (think Pepto Bismol without the tasty mint flavor). The weird foamy head that manifests a few minutes after pouring it into a cup is an ample harbinger of the non-milky experience upon which you'll soon embark. The cocoa flavor has an unflattering aerosol essence to it and despite the label touting "made with a Greek Yogurt base" there is no fermented, yogurty, microbial presence-- which is the best thing I can say about it.
Weigel's Cookies & Cream Milk
Predictably sweet throughout, with an early-peaking cookies & cream flavor that recedes in time for the sweetness to finish out the latter half of the sip. The base feels substantial without chalky residue, though it lacks the soul and staying power of its more sophisticated creamline peers. In short, pick it up if you love cookies & cream, or if you have a demanding sweet tooth that needs to be put in its place.