About a year ago I was asked to be part of a small group giving feedback on a top secret new product from drinks company Diageo. It turns out that product was a new chocolate version of Baileys, and it’s fair to say that I left thinking the drink we tried a year ago wasn’t quite ready for market.
Fast forward to July this year and we received an invitation to a mysterious event in East London, organised by the famous Bompass & Parr. The event was to promote the new drink, now ready for sale and known as Baileys Chocolat Luxe.
If you’ve ever been to a Bompass and Parr event, you’ll know they’re usually something a bit special. Last year they flooded the roof of Selfridges and turned it into a luminous green boating lake. They’ve created Willy Wonka style chocolate waterfalls and numerous jelly-based architectural creations. For the Baileys event, they took over Dennis Severs House, an almost perfect recreation of an 18th Century house in Folgate Street.
The house is wonderful and the atmosphere was perfect, but the event itself was a little lacklustre. Guests moved from room to room, learning a little about the product and the challenges of making it. At the end of the tour, we sat down and enjoyed a small afternoon tea with cakes by Lily Vanilli as we sampled the drink itself.
But we didn’t actually learn a lot at the event. While the drink is made with real chocolate, it is – as you might expect – cheap, bulk Belgian chocolate made from West African beans. The fact that it was talked about as though it was the best chocolate money could buy was more than a little frustrating. Lily’s cakes were great, and it was nice to see both Lily, and Sam Bompass & Harry Parr themselves doing the talks, but there wasn’t a lot of substance behind the theatre.
For me, that sums up the drink quite nicely. It comes in a fancy bottle, with a rather old fashioned name, but when it comes down to it, it’s just a slightly chocolatey tasting Baileys, and we’ve seen that before. In fact, Thorntons created their own chocolate liqueur two years ago. In branding terms, Thorntons may not be in the same league is Baileys, but their liqueur isn’t bad.
It’s rather annoying then that the press release for the Baileys drink starts with the lines “the world first innovation in chocolate from Baileys that sees real Belgian chocolate fused with alcohol for the first time”.
Ignoring the fact that the horribly outdated words “Belgian chocolate” are being used to signify a quality product, that little quote brings me to another issue I have with Baileys Chocolat Luxe. They haven’t really “fused” the chocolate at all, and the moment you add ice to the drink, it starts to separate. This is something we noticed in development a year ago, and although it’s not quite as bad in the final version, it seems Diageo have decided to try and make a “feature” of it…
“As the ice chills the drink a hypnotic pattern emerges on its surface, swirling and marbling the rich chocolate liqueur into a lighter ornate Rococo design.”
And this is what it actually looks like:
To me, that looks more like a curdled mess than an ornate Rococo design.
With all that said, I don’t actually dislike Baileys Chocolat Luxe. It’s actually a very pleasant, chocolatey version of Baileys, and I’d quite happily drink it occasionally. But some of the language, imagery and theatre being used to describe it are a little over the top for what it is. It’s not a unique innovation. It’s not a masterpiece of theatrical artistry. It’s just Baileys with chocolate in it. Innit.
Baileys Chocolat Luxe will be available soon at Harvey Nichols before going on general sale in October.
Sometimes when I look through my chocolate collection for something new to review, something insanely sweet catches my eye and I know I just have to have it. I normally go for the dark & fruity stuff, but once in a while I just need a sugar hit. Today, these little 40g bars from Divine Chocolate jumped out at me when I was looking for my fix. I could not deny them their destiny.
It’s been a long time since I had any supermarket confectionery, so I wondered if I’d still be able to handle it.
The milk chocolate here of course comes from Divine’s partners in Ghana, Kuapa Kokoo. But unlike the solid milk chocolate bars from Divine, this little number only contains 26% cocoa solids. That’s barely more than Dairy Milk, and puts it firmly at the bottom end of our cocoa solids chart. Given that 35% of this bar is “caramel cream filling”, that means that’s actually less than 7g of cocoa products in this bar. That’s not very much.
As you might expect, it tastes almost entirely of sugar. The filling has an odd texture and a bit of a strange aftertaste, but it’s not all bad. In actual fact, in the midst of my sugar craving I had no trouble eating the entire bar. i just felt bad that I had done so.
If you’re really into sweet confectionery, you’ll probably enjoy this. It’s certainly a step up from a Twix or Mars Bar. But for my tastes, it’s just too sweet.
I’m not sure why Divine chose to use such a low cocoa content chocolate on a product that’s already packed with sugar. As a brand that’s working to increase people’s awareness of the ethical issues in the chocolate industry, I’d rather see them aim a bit higher with the quality of their ingredients.
To be perfectly honest, I was impressed enough that there was one place in Scotland making bean to bar chocolate, so I was rather surprised that Stirling also has its own bean to bar company – iQ Chocolate. Founded by Jane Shandley and Kate Hamilton, they’ve been at it for a couple of years and have a couple of more unique aspects to their chocolate to help them stand out from the crowd.
First of all, it is made from raw cocoa which has only been lightly fermented at low temperatures and not roasted. Scondly, they use Coconut Blossom Sugar to sweeten the bar and while that might not have much of an impact on the overall taste, it apparently has a very low glycemic index which makes it healthier and popular with diabetics.
And that is what makes their chocolate a superfood in their eyes – the raw Criollo beans from Peru are high in antioxidants and other nutrients so between that and the sugar, this is one of those supposed guilt-free bars. iQ stop short of making any real health claims, but the wrapper talks about this being “intelligent chocolate” and the bar itself is embossed with their tagline “for real smarties”.
I’m more concerned about the taste than anything else though because I’m not really expecting a bar of chocolate to have magical powers. It would be great if it did, but I’m a realist.
The bar does have that more raw taste to it and has a slightly grainy texture, but not in a bad way. At 72%, it delivers a nice bold taste and a lot of great earthiness, but like the raw Madagascar bar from The Chocolate Tree, the other notes feel a little muted and underdeveloped. There are hints of liquorice and molasses, but they lurk rather than dominate.
And that’s why this wasn’t my favourite bar I’ve had recently although some other people I shared it with were much happier with it. Some of the other bars from iQ have flavours like peppermint or cinnamon and cayenne thrown into the mix and I’m thinking that might be the extra dimension I personally need. But it is wonderful to see more Caledonian bean to bar chocolate.
I love a good, rich milk chocolate, so I was looking forward to trying this hefty 53% milk chocolate from San Francisco based TCHO. It’s one of two “SeriousMilk” bars, the other being a 39% “Classic”.
TCHO prefer to talk about flavour notes rather than origins, which is a great way to get people thinking about the natural flavours in chocolate. TCHO describe this particular bar as having “a dreamy, fudgy flavor and a smooth, creamy finish”.
Trying a small square, the first thing I noticed was a quite intense chocolatey hit and a very smooth, buttery texture. It takes a few seconds for the sweetness and creaminess to come through, but when they do you really do get a very pleasant, fudgey note.
The finish is both creamy and chocolatey, but never too sweet or too bitter. In terms of flavour, it’s not complex. It’s simply a great tasting, rich milk chocolate. In fact, if there’s one problem with this chocolate it’s that it’s just too easy to eat the whole thing far too quickly. It’s no surprise that it won an International Chocolate Award for the best American-made milk chocolate last year.
I seem to be going through a bit of a milk chocolate phase at the moment, and it’s great to know that there’s such a great choice of quality, rich milk chocolates being produced by artisan chocolate makers. For milk chocolate fans and dark chocolate lovers alike, this is a bar you’ll want to try.
