I received the Mink Chocolates Hot Chocolate Bar in a Mink Chocolates “Traditional Gift Box” which contained six of their most popular Chocolate bars. I admit to leaving this particular bar until last due to my spicy food tolerance being so low. I was quite nervous about trying this chocolate bar if I’m completely honest with you because just one speck of chili pepper in my food and I’m a mess, an eyes streaming, nose running, grasping for some milk kind of mess.

The Chocolate: Mink Chocolates Hot Chocolate Bar

Type of Chocolate: Dark Chocolate

Cocoa Content: 70% Cacao

Best Eaten With: Vanilla Ice Cream

Price: $6.08

The Mink Chocolates Hot Chocolate bar boasts Arbol and Chipotle peppers in chocolate ganache, being a non-pepperhead myself I was thrilled by the inclusion of Mink’s Chocolate Ganache because it is, by far, one of my favorite features in their chocolates. The pepper in this one; however, was surprisingly tempered by the cocoa but still not exactly my cup of tea.

Taste:

The Mink Chocolates Hot Chocolate bar is wrapped just like the previous Mink chocolate bars, the only difference again is the color of the box that contains the chocolate. The Hot Chocolate bar comes in a toffee colored box which is particularly appealing. When I originally saw the name of this bar I assumed that it would contain a milk chocolate with a powdery cocoa taste akin to the warm milky drink I sometimes enjoy before bedtime…I soon realized that the name “Hot Chocolate” referred to the level of heat in the chocolate instead. Upon unwrapping the hot chocolate bar from the thick paper foil I could only discern a hint of dark chocolate aroma. The spice within the chocolate remained completely hidden until biting in to the small piece of dark chocolate confection.

The first bite of Hot Chocolate was a big one – hey go big or go home right? If I was in for heat I was going in all the way. The dark chocolate shell gave way to that delicious soft and gooey ganache that I treasured so much in Mink chocolates of the past. As I chewed the whole piece I was struck with a realization that the chocolate was not hot at all, instead I was getting a soft cocoa filled ganache that coated my mouth with a pleasant and thick dark chocolate paste. As I resigned myself to the fact that I had been duped by the name “Hot Chocolate” just one more time, I felt it rolling in. Starting in the middle of my mouth and rolling forward it started as a sharp, fast heat – the kind that any spicy food lover would call mild but any non-spicy food lover would describe as mildly unpleasant – and quickly rolled to the front of my tongue coming to rest at the top of my palate and lingering.

The heat is brought on by the inclusion of Arbol but as the heat passes it is the Chipotle that lingers with a smoky reminiscence of the Arbol spice. Thankfully for non-spice lovers the deep cocoa continues to resonate from the back of the mouth to balance out the heat but be warned – should you go for a second, third or fourth bite the heat moves down in to the throat and the chest and while it is certainly not a volcanic heat it settles with a dim puff of Chipotle smoke and lingers just long enough to send you meandering to the refrigerator for a glass of milk or in the very least a spoonful of vanilla ice cream.

The after taste of the Hot Chocolate bar is that of a diluted cocoa powder. A slightly warm cocoa powder that continues to resonate from the back of the mouth only. The smokey heat continues to reside in the upper chest (for those of us who don’t “do” heat) and the front of the palate resembles a watered down dark chocolate. The after taste of this bar is a particularly complex one for me to verbalize and I cannot discern whether this is due to my lack of heat tolerance or simply the complexity of this particular combination of elements.

Ingredients:

The ingredients in Mink Chocolates Hot Chocolate bar include: cocoa mass,  cane sugar,  fat reduced cocoa powder, cocoa butter, cream, butter, glucose syrup, invert syrup, Arbol pepper, Chipotle pepper, soya lecithin, vanilla.

The Bottom Line:

Hot Chocolate is certainly a well balanced bar bringing a complexity to the picture that is absent in many varieties of chocolate. I can appreciate the variety of flavors, the true experience of heat, smokiness and the smoothness of a decadent chocolate ganache but as it stands I am not a spice fan and so this bar did not appeal to me. Despite this fact, however, I feel that the give and take of spice and smoke and the balance of flavor is something that will be particularly enjoyed by spicy food fans.

Overall Rating:

You can buy Mink Chocolates from their online store or at their local cafe in Vancouver, British Columbia!

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