Paul A Young AquaRiva Tequila Margarita Truffle
A couple of years ago I met Cleo Rocos at a ‘Chocolate & Tequila’ evening that was part of the Chocolate Week celebrations. Cleo is, of course, known for being Kenny Everett’s sidekick and a mainstay of 80s TV, but she also happens to know more about the subject of tequila than just about anyone else you could hope to meet. In fact, she’s president of The Tequila Society.
In her quest for the perfect tequila, Cleo recently started producing her own range of tequilas. AquaRiva Tequila is already making quite a name for itself, so it’s really no surprise to see her team up with one of our favourite chocolatiers, Paul A Young, to produce a tequila chocolate.
The chocolate is made with AquaRiva’s Reposdao tequila and kalamansi, and sweetened only with organic agave syrup. In fact, it’s you could say this is a cocktail in chocolate form. The chocolate in question is a 64% Madagascan, but Paul tells me that this will switch to a Pacari raw Ecuadorian chocolate very soon.
It’s a simple and elegant chocolate, but one that has a little bit of bite hiding under the surface. For a tequila chocolate, it’s surprisingly smooth, but there’s a definite alcoholic kick to it which is only enhanced by the kalamansi. It’s sharp, citrussy and very slightly bitter, but not unpleasantly so.
I bought a few of these chocolates to share amongst some friends at dinner and the reaction was pretty much the same from everyone. A reaction that can probably best be summed up as “Mmmm…. oooh. Oh!”
The texture of the filling is soft and smooth without being liquid. The flavour is smooth, but intensely citrussy. There’s definite kick to it, but it’s something that builds slowly rather than slaps you in the face. The flavour of the chocolate is somewhat lost amongst the other flavours, but you do pick it up at the end as the soft filling melts quickly.
The Madagascan chocolate is a touch too sweet for the other flavours, but I’m sure the switch to the raw Pacari chocolate will help make this a more rounded experience. It’s a chocolate known for its green, grassy flavour notes and something that I think will work really well with the natural botanical notes in the tequila.
This is the kind of chocolate where you probably won’t need more than one in a single sitting. But it’s also something that needs to be tried, and Paul has plenty of other chocolates to fill your box with…
Paul A Young does not have an online store, but if you call the shop, they will usually be happy to post an order for you.
Information
- Contains dark chocolate (64% cocoa solids).
- Cacao Origin: Madagascar
- Filed under agave, aquariva, cleo rocos, paul a young, tequila, uk.
Whoa, that looks tasty! It reminds me of a chocolate truffle called Lindt Lindor. I really want one! And NOW I also want a Trio (was it a “Fry’s” brand bar?) that I heard about on the Internet. It was a biscuit with a toffee topping coated in milk chocolate (A bit like a Twix, but divided into three chunks.) with a red wrapper and the girl saying “TRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIO!”. Maybe it suffered a demise when Fry’s got brought out or something (Was it Nestlé that brought them? Nasty Nestlé!).