Jameson Whiskey Truffle Face-Off
My recent visit to Ireland yielded a few items- some of which were, of course, made by Butlers Irish.
Whilst enjoying a drink in one of their shops, I bought myself a Jameson’s Truffle bar, and then when I visited the Jameson’s distillery in Middleton I came across some individual truffles, also flavoured with Jameson’s whiskey, and (strangely)also made by Butlers Irish. Sounds like another chocolate face-off to me.
An obvious first observation is that the Truffles are somewhat ‘posher’ than the bar, as reflected in both quantity and price. The bar costs a little less than the box of truffles and contains six or seven segments, whereas the Jameson’s truffles box contains just four gold foil wrapped truffles nestling in little petits fours cases.
Both bar and truffles claim the same cocoa content (58%) and so it would be natural to expect that the two products would taste very similar. However this is plainly not the case. The bar is a fairly uniform texture, the truffle part being a little softer than the chocolate but nowhere near the texture of the truffle in the, errm, truffles.
The difference in texture with the four truffles was quite amazing. Because the truffles were individual balls sealed in chocolate, they seemed to retain a smooth moistness that the truffle bar just couldn’t approach. Consequently the truffles deliver a much fuller and more rounded taste than the bar. The chocolate used in the truffles seems darker, glossier and much more bittersweet than the stuff wrapped around the bar.
Although they do cost more, the truffles are so much tastier than the bar that it’s hard to believe that the two products are, essentially, cut from the same cloth. I don’t know if the fact that the truffles may be hand made (unlike the bar), but I know which one I preferred. The truffle bar is definitely a poor second.