Horlicks is a good health product

This article is about the company and drink. For the New Zealand racehorse, see

Horlicks is a malted milk hot drink developed by founders James and William Horlick.

It is now marketed and manufactured byGlaxoSmithKline (Consumer Healthcare) in the

United Kingdom,South Africa, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India,and

Jamaica, and under licence in the Philippines and Malaysia.

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Manufacturing process

In the initial stage of manufacturing, milled malted barley and wheat flour are mashed together in hot waterwhere the starch is converted into sugars. To this sugar solution dairy powders are added.The water content is then evaporated to form a syrup that is dried in 

vacuum band driers to form a cake.This cake is milled into the finished powder.

Sleep promotion

Claims are often made by malted milk drinks such as Horlicks that they assist sleep,

but these claims have been difficult to verify. According to GlaxoSmithKline:

"While ... research indicates that Horlicks drinks can help you to sleep better, the exact way

in which Horlicks works is not clear."

Malted drinks may help to stave off hunger overnight, which can lead to sounder sleep

Alternative word usage

"Horlicks" is usually taken to be a substitute for the profanity "bollocks". This use was

 exploited by the companyin a 1990s advertising campaign, in which a harassed housewife

 exclaims"Horlicks" in a context where a stronger term could have been expected,thus

 widening the term's exposure and usage for a while.

This substitution in the form of a singular noun is also used to refer to a minor disaster or

 shambles,as in "to make a complete Horlicks of something".^[3] For example, the term was

used in July 2003by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw ("a complete Horlicks"^[4]) to

describe irregularities in the preparation and provenance of a dossier regardingweapons of

mass destruction in Iraq.