This Beloved Chocolate Soda Brand From The '20s Is Actually Still Around — Here's Where It's Hiding

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Vintage sodas have a funny way of leaving a mark on people — just take a look at eBay. Collectors will drop hundreds, sometimes thousands, tracking down old bottles out of pure nostalgia, idle curiosity, or simply the thrill of owning a slice of forgotten Americana. Kayo chocolate soda tends to inspire these reactions — at least among the very small crowd that still remembers it.

At its peak, Kayo was a genuine household name for kids, particularly across the South and the Midwest. Doc Pashkow, a Russian immigrant in Chicago, created the popular drink in 1929. Back then, the skimmed milk created from the butter churning process was considered a waste byproduct — it was either used as hog feed or dumped. But Pashkow saw an opportunity, figuring he could reuse it by mixing it with chocolate syrup and turning it into chocolate milk. The recipe worked and laid the foundation for what would eventually become Chocolate Products Co. — good enough that among his earliest clients was Carnation. He named it "Kayo" after Kayo Mullins, a character in the vintage comic strip "Moon Mullins" — that's the cartoon character printed on the bottle.

You can think of Kayo as a ready-to-drink, fizzy chocolate milk. Flavor-wise, it's known to taste very similar to Yoo-hoo chocolate drink. Through the 1960s, it was a go-to after-school staple. By the '80s, though, it had all but faded out, leaving behind a handful of devoted collectors, a lot of empty bottles, and almost no one who could pick it out of a lineup today.

Even though Kayo never made it back to store shelves, it didn't vanish entirely. The chocolate drink still exists in concentrate form and is being produced by J.M. Smucker, the same company behind Jif, Folgers, and Dunkin' store-bought coffee. You still won't be able to find or buy it, though — the concentrate is sold only to cafes and similar businesses and can be used to add chocolatey flavor to drinks.

Whether it bears any resemblance to the original Doc Pashkow formula is hard to say — concentrate recipes and ready-to-drink products rarely taste like the same thing, and the people who'd remember the original are a pretty small group at this point. Nevertheless, it's rather satisfying to hear that Kayo hasn't been scrubbed from the food world altogether.

So chances are good that you've tasted something made with Kayo concentrate without realizing it. Smucker is a giant and has a wide food service footprint, which means your next cafe mocha could have a faint thread of 1920s history running through it. And for the especially dedicated, original Kayo bottles still turn up on auction sites now and then. You won't be able to taste it, but the bottles sure work as pretty curios.