Whiskey Meets Chocolate in the Alchimie Bar
Benjamin Kuentz and Nicolas Cloiseau @ThomasDhellemmes
Chocolate combined with whiskey is nothing new, but when luxury French chocolate brand La Maison du Chocolat wanted to create a chocolate bar with the taste of whisky, but without using the actual liquid, they landed on a new process of combining spirits with chocolate. La Maison du Chocolat’s chef Nicholas Cloiseau teamed up with artisanal, small-batch French whisky maker Maison Benjamin Kuentz after meeting three years ago to create a way to impart a whisky flavor to chocolate without the alcohol. Called Alchimie, the gold-tinged bar has fruity, tangy notes and a delicate yet intense peaty whisky flavor with malty aromas. “At the very beginning you have the bitterness of the blend of the cocoa, and then as it smooths in the back of your mouth, you can appreciate the taste of the whisky,” says Pietro Guerrera, the country manager of La Maison du Chocolate USA.
Experimentation
Alchimie Whisky Chocolate Bar @ThomasDhellemmes
From the start, it was all about balance. “The challenge was to find the balance—most of the time, chocolate and liquor are not well-balanced, one overpowers the other. Nicola found a new way to add the expression of whisky to chocolate and in a more balanced way,” says Kuentz. “I try to answer the question, what if whisky was invented by the French, and each whisky tells a story, and Chef Nicola is the same way with chocolate.”
After several years of experimentation and trying dozens of combinations with various types of chocolates and whiskies, the two landed on aging liquid chocolate from Grenada and Ecuador for two weeks in oak casks that have just been emptied of one of Kuentz’s more peaty whiskies, infusing it with the taste of the whisky that’s been imprinted on the wood. The barrel was rotated regularly throughout the two weeks, to help it absorb of the smoky spirit.
After years of trial and error, they both knew this was it.
“When I tasted it, I knew it was perfect,” remembers Kuentz. “I don’t like chocolate and liquor, so it was a very nice surprise when I tasted it, even more so in the liquid form.”
Guerrera believes it’s due to the tasting notes of those cacaos. “For an association with alcohol, the perfect matching was Granada and Ecuador because the Granada chocolate has a more of a fruity sensation and the Ecuador one brings a little of the spicy punch. Blended together, these two single-origin were matching up to the whisky flavors the best in the cask,” he says.
After two weeks, the liquid was poured out onto marble and formed into bars.
The project became full circle when, after the cask was emptied of the chocolate, Kuentz then put his Fin de Partie whisky back in that chocolate-tinged barrel for another round of aging of six to 12 months.
Whiskey & Bars
The limited-edition, cocoa-infused whisky, called Alchimie Chocolat, is only available in France. But Alchimie chocolate bars launched in France last year and are now available in the U.S. at La Maison du Chocolat stores and on their website for a limited time.
But don’t worry: another batch is coming. Guerrera shares that La Maison du Chocolat is already at work on finding a new spirits partner for Alchimie 2.0, which will become a series of pairing their chocolate with a premium spirit in a unique and innovative way, with a focus on quality and taste.