Gas Station Hot Chocolate Ranked Best To Worst

Steven Luna/Mashed

You might not always have the ingredients to make yourself a cup of hot chocolate at home, which is why having gas station hot chocolate nearby offers a sweet solution everybody can get behind. This tasty alternative to more highly-charged coffee drinks provides warm comfort that boosts your mood without jangling your nerves. It's also family-friendly, as delicious an option for mom and dad as it is for kids of any age who need a soothing sip while on the go.

Gas station hot chocolates run the gamut from basic powdered mixes swirled into hot water to thoughtful name-brand offerings meant to draw in customers. Provided those customers know which gas station chains carry the best hot chocolate, they can pair a cuppa with the best and most popular gas station foods for a winning mobile dining combination.

I'm not one to let hot chocolate curiosity simmer for too long before heading out on the open road to find out which gas stations provide a premium fill-up and which ones you should blow right past. So I fired up my jalopy and hit the road for a gas station cruise to see how the hot chocolate fares in the outlets near me. Flavor, quality, price, and overall enjoyment were all landmarks on my ranking map. Hop in and take a ride through the best and worst gas station hot chocolates found at some of the best-known national chains in the U.S.

Steven Luna/Mashed

The tiny convenience store called 4 Sons attached to the Chevron station in my area offers such a limited array of beverages that I was surprised to find hot chocolate among the coffee options. It feels like a tack-on for people with kids who might be hitting their road trip limit and need something sweet and soothing to calm their nerves. It also seems like an afterthought of a beverage, offering the bare minimum of what hot chocolate should be, in hopes that you won't notice until you're already back on the road again.

What doesn't work about this cup? It's watery and low on flavor, which violates both of the major rules of what makes for a good gas station hot chocolate. The aroma is misleading, alluding to a much more fulfilling drink than what it really is. It was the least enjoyable gas station hot chocolate I found, and one that I would skip entirely and go thirsty, rather than spending money on again.

Steven Luna/Mashed

This gas station hot chocolate is just a step above "meh," though it started piping hot and very creamy. It's also far too sweet, which keeps the chocolate from shining through. I tried it again after it had cooled a bit to see if a temperature change might improve things. Instead, it had turned sludgy, a gloppy cup of chocolate goo instead of the smooth hot chocolate I'd paid for. On the plus side, every purchase of the beverage comes with a free banana to balance out your vitamins and minerals. But you might as well just skip the $2.04 for a small hot chocolate and pay for the banana. 

This Jackson's station is affiliated with Shell, though the hot chocolate represented here may not be what's found at other Shell stations. Speaking purely from my experience with this taste test, I can confirm that this version of gas station hot chocolate isn't the worst thing I've ever consumed, but I would definitely think twice about pulling in for a steaming treat on a cold evening, if I knew there were other gas stations nearby serving better. I'd rather drive a little further to see what's up the road.

Steven Luna/Mashed

The combination of 76 stations and Circle K stores means superior hot chocolate can be had with every trip to the pump. Toss in the chocolate-making genius of Hershey, and you might think you have the recipe for a hot chocolate home run. What you actually have is the potential to take things too far where sweetness is concerned.

This cup should replicate the experience of a homemade hot chocolate using Hershey's powder or syrup, dealt with a judicious hand. Instead, it feels like what a five-year-old might come up with as their preferred hot chocolate — a molten mix that goes too heavy on the sweetness. The only size I could find was a medium for $2.38, which wasn't terrible price-wise until I tasted what I'd poured.

This is certainly one of the most chocolatey hot chocolate possibilities in the world of gas station hot chocolate, a strange thing to realize considering they're all supposed to be chocolatey. But the pedigree that Hershey brings to the formula stands out as a prime offering that bests most of the other selections. The one drawback is that it only tastes like hot chocolate, and it's merely one player in a whole cast of Circle K cocoa drinks that one-up each other with their considerable candy-coated charms.

Steven Luna/Mashed

There's no chance I'd pass up a Reese's peanut butter cup version of hot chocolate, especially when it's there on the tap, taunting me to take the challenge. I'm a fan of dropping peanut butter into coffee and hot chocolate beverages at home, so finding one that works the top name in PB&C enjoyment into the mix not only saves me the trouble of augmenting my hot chocolate, but it also sets me up with an A-plus candy classic that always gets the flavors just right.

Or at least it does in the peanut butter cup form ... in the hot chocolate cup form, I encountered a bit of confusion over how much of each ingredient has been incorporated. The contents of the tap are so sweet that it's hard to identify peanut butter in the mix. It certainly seems to ramp up the creaminess, however. For a costly $2.83 medium-sized swig, it delivered more sugar than I'd bargained for.

There was an undeniable pulse of excitement when I saw the flavor was available. It was the one I was most eager to sample, and the one I wanted most to top the list. But despite the scientific reason a Reese's treat tastes really good, it doesn't make for the greatest gas station hot chocolate.

Steven Luna/Mashed

It may be simple to make 5-ingredient caramel turtles at home, but having a fuel station convenience store brew it up as a drinkable treat is even easier. This one was a surprise find at a second Circle K location. I was expecting all the flavors to be the same as what I had seen initially, but this station had brand-name Turtle candy hot chocolate as part of its lineup. The idea of blending pecans and caramel into even a basic hot chocolate recipe sounded like divine inspiration from the sugar gods themselves.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well the caramel essence comes through in this $2.83 medium cup. It lends a buttery richness that helps the chocolate feel more elegant than a gas station hot chocolate has the right to be. The pecan layer is mostly a background note that provides a touch of earthiness to mellow out the sweetness.

Overall, this Turtle-style beverage is one I would prefer to basic hot chocolate, though some of the other Circle K options have a better balance of flavors captured in a fuller-bodied liquid. Still, it's a top-three pick for anyone who likes something extra in their cup.

Steven Luna/Mashed

The sweetness of Butterfinger hot chocolate from Circle K is forgivable, since it comes with a thoroughly recognizable candy bar essence that makes the cocoa complex and delicious. Granted, you won't mistake the beverage for an actual Butterfinger, but there's enough of a resemblance to make you believe the elements have been worked into a drinkable form that has its own unique personality. Call it a Butterfinger-adjacent drink, which is plenty sweet and decadent.

Circle K has featured Butterfinger cappuccino in the past, originally tying Bart Simpson into the promotional materials. This far down the line, it feels like Butterfinger hot chocolate might be a standard offering from the chain, though I don't stop in often enough to know for sure. What I do know for sure is that this version of gas station hot chocolate is one of my favorites. It presents like hot chocolate made using coffee creamer, which is always a good time, no matter what warm drink it's used in.

Even if Butterfingers don't taste the same anymore in their candy bar form, this cocoa concoction captures just enough of the Butterfinger fun to make the drink joyful without overwhelming your taste buds with syrupy sweetness. It is a worthy $2.83 spend.

Steven Luna/Mashed

QuikTrip goes out of its way to create a welcoming environment featuring food and beverages of all temperatures, not the least of which is its incredible hot chocolate. It's part of the chains upgraded nitrogen coffee station, a collection of hot beverages that come with their own bar-style taps. Not being familiar with the previous version of QuikTrip hot chocolate, I'm not sure what improvements have been made here. But I do know that this gas station-convenience store combo is slinging your best bet for a fully enjoyable hot chocolate experience.

Sipping this premium gas station hot chocolate is almost like drinking a candy bar melted in warm cream. It pours out of the spout as slowly as one of those Golden Corral chocolate fountains. Thankfully, this is much more hygienic, and the finished product is smooth and sophisticated, more of a grown-up version of hot chocolate than we adults are used to. At $2.28 for a small cup, it was one of the most cost-friendly hot chocolates, too.

Aside from dispensing top-notch hot chocolate, QT's dazzling machine is also a lot of fun to operate. It made me imagine what a taproom would be like if all the kegs were filled with adult-style cocoa drinks where beer and spirits factored into the fun.

Steven Luna/Mashed

Flavor was obviously the priority in this taste test and ranking; if a gas station hot chocolate can't get past that hurdle, it has no chance of making it through the rest of the race. Texture was pretty much neck-and-neck with flavor as a key aspect, since thicker hot chocolate usually indicates a richer flavor. And folded into those criteria was the consideration of which varieties of hot chocolate were available to choose from. This gave me more than just the ground level option in some locations, which I couldn't help but factor in as well.

Beyond the basics, I also let price guide me, as the range of spending necessary to enjoy gas station hot chocolate can often be a hindrance if you pay a lot for subpar sipping. Every small or medium cup was under $3, but some came a little too close to that price point for comfort. I also factored in the various sizes available; if the hot chocolate is premium stuff, I may want to buy a larger quantity to keep the enjoyment flowing, but I'm definitely sticking with a small for little drinkers, considering the sugar content. The Circle K stations I visited seemed to only have medium cups as a starting size. The other stations provided small to large to accommodate a variety of thirsts.