Meet Charley Wheelock, craft chocolate maker and owner of Woodblock Chocolate.
On the Costa Rica tour I shot tons of video. Finally here’s a first one to share with you!
I still remember the first night at the hotel bar in San José, Costa Rica. Charley just came in late from the airport when he shared some of his samples. His intriguing Rio Caribe was one of the strongest I ever had, well hello nice to meet you too.
Charley Wheelock only recently decided to become a craft chocolate maker. His designer background will surely help him to develop a personal take on the chocolate experience. We shared a lot of time together as two cacao comrades. On the tour he absorbed all knowledge and experience to strengthen his skills, so I’m very happy to see Woodblock came alive. And from what I tasted then, I hope the world gets more of it.
He was a great guy to share this amazing Costa Rica experience with, and I hope our chocolate trails may cross again one day soon. Enjoy the video!
When I ran into the chocolate tour in Costa Rica organized by Ecole Chocolat, I didn’t really have an idea of what to get out of it. I just knew I had to go badly, and so I did.
When the tour kicked off the first day, we all got to talk a bit about our goals and ambitions for the trip.
To that I replied that I was in Costa Rica to find out what Belgian chocolate really is (pun), and secondly to stop the “platonic” part of my relation with cacao.
You may be enjoying the thing you like as much as you want, read books on it, do activities around it, and some more. But at a given moment you’ll get that itch that makes you go to the true source. To understand a tiny bit more what it really is that you like so much. To get a different angle. To reinterpret why you love it, and why it’s fun. Finally embracing cacao physically and mentally shaped my ambitions.
After 10 days in Costa Rica, I come back from a succesful ‘de-platonizing’ experience, and I now know what I don’t know yet. And even if I did not have any particular expectations, this trip exceeded all of them, and I will share it as much as I can with as many people.
Through some following blog posts, photo and video, let’s take you to the fruit of the gods. Thank you Ecole Chocolat for the great tour, thank you Steve Devries for being the geyser of knowledge and inspiration, and all the enthusiast people for the never ever ending talks.
And thank you cacao for being here, the food of the future. Pura Vida!
Since Choqoa and WIB found each other, we recently had a third Whisky & Chocolate Masterclass, which was initiated ‘due to popular demand’. At regular Choqoa tasting events people are often inspired trying out the rich tasting chocolate they just discovered with other premium foods and drinks, and if I mention the whisky option, well it boosts the interest let’s say!
After the first Masterclass at The House of Marketing, we also had a private one for a global company Agile as the cherry on the cake for an intimate VIP event with their top clients and preferred partners. Our latest one welcomed both new people and those who even already attended a Choqoa tasting.
With Whisky Import Benelux we have an excellent offering that specifically works with pairings of the Carn Mór Vintage Collection. More than just putting some whisky and chocolate together, we have been specializing and having fun in taking the idea of whisky and chocolate a step further with carefully selected one-on-one pairings. Bart from WIB is a truly passionate whisky ambassador and has an excellent nose for matching aromas. We have been working on a list of wonderful whiskies that create an exciting combination with special selected origin chocolates.
On the list are chocolate from François Pralus, Bonnat, Michel Cluizel and even a superb Pacari pairing. So far my two favorite combinations are the fruity Pralus Papouasie with a single cask Balmenach 2001 and the iconic and incredibly sour “Le 100%” with a very wholesome Caol Ila 1983. It’s just wonderful to feel how both build upon each other in new dimensions.
The whiskies have enough power to give balance to these upfront tasting origin chocolates, and blending something edible with something aromatic fluid must be a key to give a delightful experience on the palate.
Though taste is always personal, it’s encouraging to surprise people to change their mind with this level of both chocolate and whisky. So you could never believe dark chocolate can taste like this? I didn’t know whisky can be so fine either . We learned from our first tasting, and now people really where enthusiast about the idea, the combinations and the way we present them. After all, great taste is something to share anytime!
If you ‘re inspired, we’ll continue our tastings after the summer break, so stay in touch with our blog, websites, and both our Facebook Fanpages (Choqoa – WIB)!
Last year in January, I went to one of my first food related events other than only chocolate. “The Flemish Primitives” in Bruges, Belgium, was an ambitious setting, crafted around the theme of foodpairing, staging the world’s best cooks. On stage we were thrown into serial ecstasies by chefs like Serge Vieira (France), Ben Roche (Moto, Chicago), Heston Blumenthal (The Fat Duck) and many other leading chefs and scientists.
Being an obsessive amateur of fine origin cacao bars only, it was with hindsight the first time I gained a level of respect for a chocolatier when I lived the experience driven sensations Dominique Persoone set on stage. And after a not less than mind blowing, though inspiring day, I’ll never forget the last presentation of an overwhelming series: Albert Adrià from El Bulli gave us pure visual poetry through food.
I have the unique opportunity to go back this year, to see an even more impressive list of the greatest chefs on earth. And I’m sure the experience will be of an inspiring added value to all of the Choqoa projects in 2010 as well!
A couple of days ago on an afternoon I sat together with WIB, an importer of great fine whisky, to tryout some pairings with chocolate. So far I only did once a pairing with chocolate and wine, which was really fun, but whisky was really an unexplored space for me… and that had to change!
Bart is an exclusive importer and brought a fantastic Vintage Collection of 24 different small whisky bottles, and the first thing I have to say is that he made me (re)discover whisky! Just like I share my passion to help you discover great chocolate, this kind of whisky stands out from everything I had so far, because I just didn’t know better so far!
Given the idea that this pairing was new for both of us, we just started tasting some bars and bottles, all of them were wonderful, but off course finding a good match takes some more tasting along. The first thing to do to match alcoholic drinks and chocolate is to find the right tasting technique. I think enjoying chocolate with wine is very different from pairing it with whisky. With wine you’d melt a piece half in your mouth and sip in some wine, with whisky however it soon became clear we had to seek a different approach because of the strong character and the alcohol.
What did work was sipping the whisky first, swallow and only then join in the chocolate chunk. The melting chocolate then eagerly mixed with the evaporating flavours of the whisky that last long in your mouth, and that’s a ticket for some nice experience!
Before, I assumed whisky would need by definition a strong chocolate bar, high in cacao percentage like a Michel Cluizel Infini 99%, or a Pralus 100%. But it unexpectedly got a lot more interesting and pleasant to discover that with these particular bottles from a Carn Mor ‘Vintage Collection’, any chocolate had a chance to match. We sipped from exquisite single cask whisky distilled by Balmenach, Clynelish, Glenn Ort, Glengoyne, Glen Grant,… and munched mainly on Pralus with his bars from Trinidad, Equateur, Madagascar, Indonésie, Papouasie, a lovely Brésil and Dominican Republic!
Just as with wine some made war, some separated ways only halfway, and some made love from the start! But above all it was a great discovery to have this sensation of whisky and chocolate finding each other on a long adventure of flavours, and from both ways enrich each other’s aromas and sensations.
To our own pleasure, and because we were really enthusiast ourselves on this experience, our final winning pairings are going to be launched in a limited box, so let me know if you may be interested in this as well!
. We learned from our first tasting, and now people really where enthusiast about the idea, the combinations and the way we present them. After all, great taste is something to share anytime!
