NPR's Bittersweet Guide To Chocolate, Yum!
A team of lucky individuals over at NPR spent the last two weeks blind tasting chocolate in a very, um, scientific study intended to identify the best Valentine's Day chocolate to send your sweetie:
After gorging on the good (and not-so-good) stuff, NPR's stuffed staff reached some decisions about the best -- and worst -- Valentine's Day online-orderable gifts to give this holiday season.The Best? NPR liked quite a few, the most interesting sounding being:
"Donnelly Chocolates Liquor Bombs, a collection of handmade dark chocolates with hard-liquor centers (tequila, Manhattan, limoncello, port, margarita, and scotch), the room was spinning for more than a few producers (in a good way.) "That was the best liquor-chocolate combo I've ever had," said one. "So much better than Pabst."Better than Pabst? Surely not. —MEGHANN MARCO
Post a comment
Comments:
As a chocolate connoisseur, I dunno about their list of the best chocolate -- IMO, Godiva is overrated and overpriced. Trader Joe's sells Belgian chocolates that are as good, if not better than Godiva, for half the price.
And if you order now with a credit card you'll get a complimentary tote bag! :)
For those of us who aren't fans of dark chocolate, Kahlua makes a lovely milk chocolate with a Kahlua liqueur center -- yummy.
Heck yes to the chocolate liquor bombs. I had the pleasure of receiving a fancy set of them a couple years back -- Drambuie, Stoli, Jack Daniels, Johnnie Walker, etc. All encased in liquor-bottle-shaped dark chocolate. Best thing ever. And highly recommended as a precursor to your Valentine's Day romping.
IMO, Godiva is overrated and overpriced
I agree. I much prefer Lindt. Or, in the Bay Area, there's See's.
In 1991, my first year of college in downtown Milwaukee, you could get the yeast smell from Pabst and the chocolate smell from Ambrosia.
Is that the same as a liquor bomb?
PBR is OK, but HighLife is my dollar beer of choice..
My vote for good chocolate goes to DeBrand. My company got some of their stuff one Christmas as a gift and I've been ordering their stuff for friends and family since.
John Stracke, good call--See's rocks. And is available online, thank heaven.
See's is pretty good, and they have stores in Oregon fortunately.
I tried some Russell Stover dark chocolates recently, which were quite good. I've always turned my nose up at RS because I thought they were a cheapo drugstore brand, but I was pleasantly surprised. They're sort of the "2-Buck-Chuck" of chocolates...in fact, they'd make a pretty good combo with the wine.
Hey, I'm easy - after trying many of the "bests" listed above, I still prefer a plain ole bag of Dove milk chocolates anyday.
I still can't believe the results of their "testing." I find it very hard to believe Hershey's, Vosges, and La Maison du Chocalat are in the same category.
I love dark chocolate. This kind of makes me want some. :)