This week on Island Artisans, a visit to the Denman Island Chocolate factory with owner Daniel Terry, pictured left. Denman Island Chocolate bars are available across Canada and the United States in retail outlets and by mail order. Just visit the website for more info…but you should know that all the Denman Island Chocolate products are certified organic.
This is the new facility Daniel built to house the chocolate-making premises. It's in a beautiful setting on a ridge overlooking the ocean.
He has placed a permanent covenant on the ridge so it can never be built on…
Daniel stopped by my place in Cobble Hill on Sunday morning to talk about some new chocolate bars. One is called 'Holy Mole', a take on Mexican chocolate, a very spicy bar using organic chipotle chile powder, essential oil of orange and dark chocolate.
The other bar is very special, and will only be available as a limited edition in a couple of weeks. Daniel managed to get about three-quarters of a ton of single plantation, single vintage, organic chocolate from a cacao producer in the Peruvian Amazon. Nothing else will be blended with this chocolate before he puts it into bars. (it has a little bit of vanilla in it already) I got to taste the chocolate in oversize chocolate chip size, and it is very aromatic….Daniel says it has a flavour of banana…I think it has the flavour of those little strings that stick to your banana after you peel it, so maybe a little more tannic in nature. The final bar will no doubt taste a little differently after tempering, molding and cooling. It will be called 'Alto El Sol'. Look for the Peruvian-style artwork on the wrapper.
One other note on special bar: Some of Denman Island Chocolate's regular 60% dark bars will be labeled with a special photo of mountain goats in the Flathead Wild area of British Columbia. Some of the proceeds from this bar go toward helping the Sierra Club and other environmental groups protect the Flathead Wild, part of the Flathead River Valley that straddles Alberta, BC and Montana right on the Continental Divide.
I’ve tried the raspberry, the coco loco, and the espresso, as well as the “simply dark” flavours. all amazing.
http://www.xf105.info/