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The Wonders of Fine Chocolate & Premium Whisky Pairings

By on July 25, 2012 in On Chocolate & Cacao

Chocolate and wine is a popular pairing idea. However to my experience this pairing also symbolises the weakness of how we in general think of chocolate. Like we tend to grab a bottle of red with red meat, and put a white next to poultry and fish, a lot of depth, experience and novelty is lost when we start with these assumptions.

Chocolate and whisky have the richness to transcend these prejudices, when we allow ourselves to open up to a level of premium and artisan crafted products.

Our Principles of Pairing.

Below are some of the lessons I learned on our journey to pairings that work. Aromas, flavors, transitions and sensations. All molecules at play, but I am not down on some chemistry lessons. The following experience-driven statements may inspire you too.

Air & Aroma

From my personal experiences, whisky gains its strength on air and breath, chocolate develops its flavors on palate and mouth. These different sensations allow both of the pairing elements to have their own field of play. It makes them blend, fight, join, separate in the joint area of our overall senses. Aromas and flavors both play while chewing, melting, sipping and breathing.

Solid & Fluid

The beauty of this pairing exercise already lies in the fact we combine a fluid drink with a solid food. It allows both to fully cover our senses, palate and mind in order to seek harmony. I’ve learned that top chefs not only craft flavor combinations, but moreover are alert to harmony of textures. Think about how you might appreciate the feel of a fatty, thick, wholesome whisky. Or consider how a dark chocolate may swiftly melt down over your tongue before letting go. Now imagine having both at the same time.

Temperature & Fit

One of the most important aspects of the succes of whisky and chocolate is their matching temperature, though hardly ever mentioned. Chocolate needs to be appreciated through its melting flow. Any pairing that does not take this into account is bound to fail – imho. It does open possibilities for rum, gin?, but dilutes with cold-served champagnes and most fresh beers, I would argue. Whisky fits in perfectly, and the warm sensations it produces even increases the pleasing melt of cacao.

Length & Interaction

These levels of fine whisky and artisan chocolate are not only about flavors, but also about development and length. We have a nose, opening, mid and ending on both foods, at least. With various intriguing timings and transitions. No need to say it makes the successful pairing challenge all the more rewarding. You have reached your goal when there is creative play all over the curves of tastes and transitions in chocolate and whisky, and if the result is an elevating experience.
Taking it a little step further, Peter and I even cross-test the best order, wether to consume first a sip of whisky or start a bite from the cacao. The difference may sometimes be huge.

What’s next?

I hope you enjoy these thoughts, but since I’m all but a whisky expert nor sensorial behaviour analyst, I’m looking forward to your thoughts.
Should I maybe write a little book on it?

 

Choqoa’s First Whisky and Chocolate Pairing

By on November 3, 2009 in On Chocolate & Cacao, Reviews

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!

Choqoa’s First Whisky and Chocolate Pairing

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!

Cacao Chemistry. Films by TCHO pt.3

By on July 4, 2009 in Marketing, On Chocolate & Cacao

This eventually is the 3th and final video documenting TCHO chocolates. After introducing processing cacao, and going behind the scenes in the TCHO labs, this one ends up with the BoignBoing team eventually tasting TCHO chocolate.
You’ll learn about the tasting universe, just as with wines, and see them discovering the true essence of cacao and its characteristics. “Hey, It tastes like a cigar”…Enjoy!

(via BoingBoing)

One month of Choqoa.com

By on October 24, 2008 in Marketing

So it’s been one month at Choqoa.com and what happened? At first I’m really happy myself to finally have created a place to share my passion. I really should have started this earlier, but speaking with hindsight is always easy. Blogging takes time and energy, though passion fuels the fire, so let’s rock on to make the story pay off. It’s a great after all to synthesize my addiction in words that I can easily share with you.

At present the site is gaining visitors from all continents, which very nice to spot and also the main reason for me to blog in English. In the map below you see where visitors come from and I indicated for fun the growing zone of cacao, which is about 20° up and down the equator. See for yourself:

Next to direct traffic and already some interesting Google search results, I also get a good amount of visits through my Cacao Aficionado photos on Flickr. It’s encouraging to see that both hobbies strengthen each other. The Choqoa on Twitter account also helps a little to drive int’l traffic. It’s pleasant to spot some people here that are equally into (digital) marketing and share the curiosity and passion for chocolate (jacksonbr, jomarbr, timwillems, Emakina). Stats are picking up slowly, there definitely is still work to do for building more extensive traffic, so I also created a Choqoa Facebook FanPage to which I invite all of you to join too!

And also off line in real life, a lot of encouraging things happened. On my chocolate safari in Düsseldorf I discovered new brands like Hussel, Coppeneur and Maglio, and also the Neuhaus bars bought later on in Antwerp seem interesting. I went behind the scenes at chocolatier Goossens, and all of the people whom I had taste from ‘my’ chocolate reacted exactly as I hoped, though most of the time I was rather nervous awaiting their first impressions. :-)
I went networking on the Max Havelaar FairTrade Colloquium and was very enthusiast meeting the people from Callebaut over there. They were charmed by my story and invited me to share more about our passion. In return I learned a lot from them too, and above all they were really helpful in providing a lot of new information on the cacao market. Their Account Manager was even so friendly to provide me with the origin samples for that other great offline experience: my first wine & chocolate pairing.

As for actual business resulting from this blog, I’m excited by getting a freelance job for one of the world’s most famous chocolatier brands, and I’ll be helping to develop their online & digital strategy. Next to that, it’s still about exploring various opportunities for how we eventually really may get into cacao business: whether it is venturing in a self-owned project or by joining the industry at a marketing related position, that is still open. Next milestone will be the Salon du Chocolat, next week in Paris!

My first Wine & Chocolate pairing experience

By on October 20, 2008 in On Chocolate & Cacao, Reviews

Last Sunday afternoon I went to a wine tasting home event at a friend. I thought this was a nice low-profile opportunity to smuggle in some origin chocolate and engage in my first ever wine & cacao pairing. I emailed him to ask what wine types he would be offering, and he said his first home tasting would be for wines from Argentinian domaines with a lot of body, mainly Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon vintages. He was very open to my pairing suggestion and I was lucky enough to get some sample packs from my new friends and chose 4 origin varieties that should match with Argentinian wines according to their experience: so I had selected a range of Venezuela, Ghana, Arriba and an African Blend.

Wine & Chocolate pairing

Of course I was very curious to see how things would go and as usual would just let things come as they are. There were some twenty-some people over the place, and I found myself a spot behind the counter in the kitchen where I could stealthy place my sample bars. Attracted by noticing these different anonymous chocolate samples next to the wine flights, folks asked my about my story. I had really nice chats with various friends and visitors about this idea of pairing and they were pleasantly intrigued by discovering these various cacao flavours, and the wine experience of course perfectly topped it all of…

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