Brownie Chocolate Drink

by Posted on

Two years ago, I began increasing the amount of protein I consume. Besides consuming more protein bars and eating more protein dense foods, I also began to supplement with protein shakes. One of the first brands I bought was Optimum’s Extreme Chocolate Milk.

I picked up a large bag at Costco and once I got home, I mixed a scoop with ten ounces of almond milk and took a swig, curious to see how it tastes. What I tasted was not what I expected, of course, it didn’t taste like chocolate milk, but it tasted familiar. I could have sworn I’d tasted this exact taste before. My mind tried to place it and at first, I thought about Yoohoo, but it wasn’t that. No, this was something from deeper in my childhood, this tasted like Brownie.

Brownie Chocolate was a whey-based chocolate drink, produced from the 1950s until 2007. It was sold primarily in Southern States such as Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, and Indiana. It was usually found in drink machines alongside RC Cola or Cheerwine.

Brownie was originally released in glass bottles but eventually made its way into cans. An elf served as its mascot.

The ingredients included: water, sugar, non-fat dry milk, solid cocoa, imitation flavor and stabilizer. It was canned by Monarch-NuGrape Company out of Doraville, Georgia and packed by the Custom Chocolate Company in Orlando, Florida.

Not much can be found online regarding Brownie, and most of the images I’ve found feature the logo popular from the 1950s to the 1970s. When I think of Brownie, I think of the logo from the 80s and 90s, which unfortunately is harder to find evidence of.

I remember the bottles in the 80s were solid in short, fat glass bottles, similar to how Pepsi was sold. Monarch-NuGrape had another chocolate beverage called Chocolate Solider that was also sold in a similar shaped bottle.

I preferred both Brownie and Chocolate Solider to Yoohoo, but I was never a huge chocolate drink fan. I don’t think I’ve tasted a Yoohoo since I was a teenager, nor a Brownie or Chocolate Solider since the mid-90s.

Still, for a protein mix, tasting like a Brownie chocolate drink is not a bad thing. It certainly isn’t the best, but I’m happy to experience a little trip down memory lane with each sip.