Sunday, February 28, 2010

Bar of the Week: Patric's Rio Caribe Superior


The title of this post should really be "Bar of the Patric Week":  all week long we'll be celebrating and sampling chocolates from Patric, the Missouri-based maker of bean-to-bar artisinal chocolate.  Owner Alan McClure produces on a micro-batch basis, only 50 carefully controlled pounds at a time. Many of our customers already know and love his range of single-origin bars of fruity Madagascar cacao.

Our Saturday sampling will highlight Patric's Rio Caribe Superior, a 70% dark chocolate made with single-estate cacao from Venezuela's Paria Peninsula. The succinct list of ingredients (cocoa beans and cane sugar) allows the chocolate's inherent flavor to shine.  Expect notes of cream, flowers, roasted nuts, and coffee.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Bar of the Week: Amano's Dos Rios


From his base in the mountains outside Salt Lake City, Art Pollard of Amano Artisan Chocolate seeks out the cacao world's most eccentric and flamboyant beans, transforming them into chocolate that showcases their strong personalities. 

Amano's new Dos Rios bar is the product of a chance encounter and behind-the-scenes matchmaking.  A friend in the industry came across a uniquely flavorful cacao while traveling in the Dominican Republic and immediately alerted Pollard, who adjusted his processing techniques to maximize the cacao's inherent flavors.  The result is a strongly perfumed 70% chocolate with pronounced notes of bergamot, rose, and orange blossom, and a long floral finish.  It's hard to believe that none of these flavors were added! 

Dos Rios is probably unlike anything you've tasted before.  Stop by for a sample of this exciting new chocolate on Saturday, February 27th.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Bar of the Week: Pralus Colombie

A 75% dark chocolate of single-origin Trinitario beans, Pralus' Colombie combines the nutty and coffee notes common to the region's chocolates with Pralus' typical heavy roast and creamy texture.  Seventypercent.com praises the bar's complex interplay of fruit and cream, calling it "definitely one of the must-tries of the Pralus line".  If you'd like to try Pralus' Colombie, be sure to stop by on Saturday, February 13th for a sample.