Good Chocolate Milk

You can buy cocoa powder in a grocery store, near the baking ingredients. That way, you have full chocolate flavor with little else. Then you can mix in milk powder, spices, or whatever you want to make a custom drink.

–B.G.–

Nice BG as usual simple and good suggestion from you. How to make sure the raw cocoa powder has no fillers since its a bulk product

"Cocoa powder" found in Grocery Store baking aisles is pretty much just that, cocao thats had the fat (mostly) removed and turned into a dry powder, no fillers. Thats a good base for some homemade hot chocolate, but you need a combo of fat and sugar to make it complete. Vanilla doesn't hurt either.

If you don't care about refined sugars or dairy, then some Nido powdered whole milk, and powdered sugar work well. Mix with cold water and heat it(not the other way around).

I'm paleo for the most part so would use powdered coconut milk and sugar in the raw.

As for vanilla, the easiest way is put 1-2 vanilla beans in your dry sugar when storing it. You will get a wonderful vanilla flavor without using liquid extract.

I thought that I was going to make hot chocolate from scratch.

I went to the grocery store, but I could never find a package of scratch.

–B.G.–

Cocoa powder is a base ingredient, it doesn't have fillers. You can of course buy better brands – such as Navitas, who makes raw cacao powder.
Another option is to buy the hot chocolate disks sold in the latino section. They are good.

I second making your own mix. All you need is cocoa powder (you can get organic, but I recommend dutch-processed, otherwise it can be very bitter), milk powder (either non-fat or Nido), and powdered sugar. I sometimes add ground cinnamon, too. Now you can control exactly what is in your cocoa, and you can experiment with if you like it more or less chocolatey, or more or less sweet, etc. Google "Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix" for other ideas.

I especially love a variation of irish coffee substituting hot cocoa or hot chocolate for coffee. Yummy! Takes the ache out of the knees too.