Chilate

Chilate is a cold, sweet chocolate drink from the state of Guerrero in southwestern Mexico, made from ground cocoa, rice, cinnamon, sugar and water, with a name that comes from the Nahuatl chilliatl ("chili water"). The drink is built on a base of atolli, a thick maize drink, into which the rice is cooked until the whole thing is creamy, and the cocoa is added in a thin paste so that the flavour is gentle and milky rather than bitter. It is poured cold into a tall glass, often over crushed ice, and served with buñuelos or pan dulce on the side.

Chilate is most associated with the town of Ayutla de los Libres and the surrounding Amuzgo, Mixtec, Tlapanec and Afro-Mexican communities of the Costa Chica region, and it is a fixture at village festivals, patron saint days, and the public markets of Ometepec, San Luis Acatlán and Acapulco. A different chilate, made from corn dough, black pepper and ginger, is drunk in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, where it is a hot drink served with sweets such as nuegados and dulce de camote. The Mexican drink is generally agreed to be the older of the two: the cold, sweet, rice-and-cocoa form is unique to the Guerrero coast and is increasingly seen on menus in Mexico City and Oaxaca.