The cocoa it is one of the gastronomic symbols of contemporary Catalonia, and especially of self-made industrial Catalonia, as well as having the title of being the world’s first industrially manufactured cocoa milkshake. Even today, almost 100 years after its launch, ordering a Cacaolat in a bar is a whole declaration of rootswhether natural, cold or hot, as its advertising sings.
This drink was born out of the need to transform the dairy surplus that was often produced, and that concerned Letona’s partners. But what was Latvian then? In 1925, the members of the Association of Receivers and Sellers of Milk of Barcelona decided to join forces to create a distributor to market packaged and sterilized milk, far from the family tradition of getting supplies in the dairies of cities and towns.
The founders of the Latvian dairy company found in the Greek myth of Leto the symbol that would represent them
Its founders found in Greek mythology and in the myth of the maternity of the Latvian goddess the symbol that would represent them. Latvian, daughter of titans, became pregnant by the god Zeus. Hera, a hurt and jealous wife of hers, decided to condemn her with the curse that her future mother would not be able to give birth anywhere where there were rays of sunlight.
Letona wandered the world until Zeus learned of the curse and brought his former lover to Poseidon, who hid her on the island of Delos and built a deck for her to give birth to. After nine days and nine nights of painful laborthe goddess had her children Apollo and Diana.
Also the birth of Cacaolat is surrounded by magic. It is said that the The idea for this milkshake came from a wedding in Hungary. to which the owners of the Granges Vinader, from Letona, were invited. That invitation meant trying an unknown mixture that ignited the spark.
However, its manufacture required being able to be manufactured in series, produced in hygienic conditions and be suitable for all audiences. Legend also tells that the inventors relied on the knowledge of a Hungarian chemist, Ernets Gokesand in the use of surplus milk.
A smashing debut
Thus, in 1932 the registration of intellectual property granted the company the patent for a new product called cocoa under the definition of a “refreshing and tasty drink”. His launch took place at the VI Barcelona Trade Fairheld in June 1933, where it achieved enormous success.
The chronicles of the time relate that, when the fair opened, the product could be tasted for free at the Granges Vinader stand, in Cardedeu (a town 37 kilometers from Barcelona) and before the queues and the avalanche of requests the tasting was charged at five cents a glass.
As documented in the company, “success was impossible to stop” and Granges Vinader could not carry out such a large-scale production in the restaurants and sales premises that they had. It was Marc Viader i Bas, owner of the company and partner and member of Letona, who made it possible for this new product to acquire the large scale that he needed for its commercial development. Thus, in 1933 Letona began to produce 900 bottles of Cacaolat and just three years later it already produced 686,425.
A gap of 15 years due to the war
The Civil War paralyzed the manufacture of milkshake due to lack of supplies and almost 15 years passed without Cacaolat due to the conflict and its consequences. In fact, its production was not resumed until cocoa imports normalized.
In 1950, with the motto Same quality as 1936Cacaolat began its second and definitive existence, and since then millions of bottles have been produced that, put together, would give eleven times around the world. Also from myth, some say that this length would serve to go from Earth to the moon and back.
Since then, the company began a series of advertising campaigns starring Pepi, a smiling and strong boy that he carried a bottle of this drink on his back and that he promoted Cacaolat as a baby food.
hand in hand with art
To celebrate its 65th anniversary, the brand threw a big party and commissioned the renowned plastic artist Joseph Maria Subirachs (Barcelona, 1927-2014) the making of a commemorative lithograph as a reminder of the event. The requirement for the artist was that the painting incorporate a reference to Barcelona and the iconic style bottle torpedo from Cacaolate.
The artist titled the work Dialogue Cocoa in a dialogue between a white profile representing milk and another brown profile evoking cocoa, and in the background one of the chimneys of La Pedrera, by Antoni Gaudías a symbol of the city where the drink was born.
Artists and writers have referenced the iconic milkshake in their creations
In addition, this drink was integrated into the Catalan collective imagination as a more perfect food for its pairing with emblematic local proposals. like pa amb tomàquet. In 1988, the architect Oriol Bohigas, then Councilor for Culture of the Barcelona City Council, presented it as a gastronomic couple at a meal with journalists and gastronomes such as Ferran Adrià, Natàlia Gaig and Joan Mediavilla. Already at that time you could try mixed drinks and cocktails in the Catalan capital with this milkshake as an ingredient, such as the ‘lumumba’ with Cacaolat and cognac.
This drink also occupies a prominent place in literature since Bohigas sponsored her. In 1980 the literary group Ofèlia Dracs made him the protagonist of the erotic story Deu poemetes tea el pomer (1980), edited by Tusquets, and where the milkshake was responsible for the protagonist’s pregnancy. Ramon Monton Lara also included it in his novel The Nyèbit (2003), which recreates the existential journey of its protagonist through different historical finds and discoveries, and Albert Mestres Emilio recovered it in his account The death of the imbecile (2000).
However, his highlight it came from the hand of Enrique Vila-Matas, who introduced this drink in his autobiographical novel ‘El Mal de Montano’, winner of the 2002 Herralde Prize and the 2003 Médicis Prize for a foreign novel in France. In it, Vila-Matas affirmed: “My Proust cupcake was the Cacaolat. Those cacaolats in the port of Ibiza, watching the Transmediterránea ships dock and depart, with the flamboyant flags on the chimneys”. Josep Maria Espinàs also remembered this smoothie in A peu pel Maestratand more recently Màrius Serra did it in his press articles and the humorist Andreu Buenafuente in his monologues.
The company sponsored Snowflake for his ties to his native Guinea
The smoothie was also associated with one of the most universal citizens of Barcelona: Snowflake, the albino gorilla found in 1966 in the Nko jungle, in Equatorial Guinea, which was a tenant of the Zoo until 2004. Within the framework of the Adopt me campaign, Letona adopted this animal because of the Guinean link to the cocoa plantations where the milkshake is produced.
A secret and intact recipe through time
The company’s marketing and communication manager, Laura Rojals, explains that the original recipe for Cacaolat it has remained intact since 1933. “It’s a secret recipe that we can’t reveal, made with 90% Latvian milk from local family farms and cocoa from sustainable farming,” he explains.
However, this drink has necessarily been evolving hand in hand with the times, especially to new palates. In this area, Rojals details that the company constantly seeks to innovate “to adapt to consumer preferences and market trends in both flavors and new formats.”
The company even launched a Cacaolat veggie, designed for vegan consumption options, but it did not catch on. Rojals details that they had this product in the past “but the reception it had in the market was not what was expected.” “Even so, we keep an eye on trends and the company’s R&D team is constantly working on new projects,” he warns.
Pictures | cocoa
Direct to the Palate | Villa y Corte del cacao: “Madrid did not invent penicillin, but it did invent chocolate”
Direct to the Palate | Not all cocoa powders are the same: how many types are there, how they differ and how to use them in our recipes