What Chocolate means
Chocolate is a Mexican drink name of Nahuatl origin meaning "cacao drink". It comes from chocolātl (cacao drink); leading account chicolli (beater stick) + ātl (water). It is pronounced choh-koh-LAH-teh, and it is most associated with Oaxaca.
The popular gloss 'bitter water', from xococ (sour) + ātl (water), is disputed and widely rejected: xocolātl is not attested in Classical Nahuatl sources, and the sound change from x to ch has no parallel inside Nahuatl. Dakin and Wichmann's chicolātl, after the stick used to froth the drink, is the better-supported reading.
About this origin. The etymology is uncertain, disputed, or the name is a modern brand rather than an old word. The reading above is the best-supported one; food writing repeats stories that the dictionaries do not confirm.
Chocolate is one of the many Mexican food words formed in Nahuatl. Spanish borrowed it, and in several cases English borrowed it again from Spanish. See how Nahuatl builds words and the full list of Mexican food names.
This is a site about what Mexican words mean, so there is no recipe here. For the name itself: Agua fresca, horchata, atole, tepache, pulque, mezcal. Most Mexican drink names are the name of the plant or grain they are made from, and the agave spirits are named for the towns and regions that make them.
