Pacari's Day Of Triumph

Francisco X. Vivar pairing Pacari chocolate & whisky

This is a post about pairing chocolate with whisky. Chocolate, at the high end, offers a range of different flavors via different cacao varieties, growing regions and plantations with clear terroir and a powerful set of flavors with fermented winey notes, a whole series of complex alkaloids, creamy luscious fats, vegetal compounds and tannins, the flavors of roasting or baking (unless raw) wrapped up in a rich seductive mouth feel. The flavors can persist on the palate in a long finish and pair well with a variety of beverages:  classically wine, and coffee. More recently the craze for fine whisky has led to an explosion of interest in chocolate-whisky pairing. Whisky and chocolate are both extremely flavor dense foods and their pairings can be uneasy, discordant or deliciously complimentary. Sometimes, mysteriously and excitingly, certain whisky chocolate pairs combine to form dramatically new "emergent" flavors. This startling effect takes on an aspect of "flavor tripping" - joyriding the palate through gastronomic stunts.

Piura 70% (front), Nube 70% (rear)

Recently I met with Francisco X. Vivar, the voluble and incredibly sweet and elfin North American importer, evangelist, and human face of Pacai chocolate in the USA. Vivar and I were planning a tour of The Morgan Library & Museum, some lunch, and a bit of chocolate-whisky pairing. As it turned out, Francisco had just received the news that Pacari had been crowned the champion of the world finals of the first International Chocolate Awards - winning 5 Gold (including the overall) and a Silver (see addendum and link at bottom). Feeling expansive, we dined exclusively on Pacari chocolate that day, taking in most of the upcoming Fall line-up including the rare lauded Piura white cacao bar, the extremely rare Nube varietal bar (limited to 2000 bars worldwide), and pre-release prototypes of a Pacari Fig bar, a bar made with a traditional pulled sugar cane toffee-caramel called "Melcocha", and much of the core line up to boot. We paired these extraordinary chocolates with a selection of whiskies representing a broad flavor gamut: Glenmorangie Nectar D'Or, Oban DE 1995, Elijah Craig 12, Douglas McGibbon Provinance Port Ellen 23 1982/2005, and Balcones Brimstone. Some of these pairings were extraordinary, and will be described fully further on. But first, a bit of background.

I'm preparing a chocolate-whisky pairing event which will be held in January at The Morgan Library's beautiful Morgan House Dining Room and I figured Pacari chocolates would be ideal pairing partners for whisky. I already knew they were, actually. I was introduced to the topic by Mr. Vivar and Compass Box's Brand Ambassador, Robin Robinson back in April at a pair of tastings. Over the ensuing months I have studied the topic. Of particular value was Stuart Robson's Connosr.com article on whisky chocolate pairings. He discusses the concept, methodology, and lists a number of very very specific pairings that cover a wide flavor range. Here's the paragraph on the methodology of pairing whisky and chocolate, to give you an idea of how it's done, and how Robson writes:

• Take the whisky on the palette, moving it around the mouth for awhile to let the flavours build.
• Once swallowed, wait a few seconds before placing a very small piece of chocolate on the tongue. Allow the chocolate to melt slowly and experience the profiles of the Chocolate and Whisky as they come together.
• Towards the end of the melt, take a little of the whisky back over the chocolate. This leads to greater intensity and often the development of some interesting and unexpected flavours.
• Enjoy the finish as you normally would, only this time you will see some interesting variations in the profile of the whisky.

http://www.connosr.com/distilled/issue-2/pairing-whisky-with-chocolate/
Robson is unusually situated to write about whisky chocolate pairings. He is the whisky reviewer at Connosr's Whisky Marketplace Blog:
http://www.whiskymarketplace.co.uk/blog/

There, he writes beautiful tasting notes - among the most poetic and metaphorically illustrative detailed and communicative tasting notes I've ever read. He also has worked in the sweets biz and is an active chocolate enthusiast and reviewer on chocolate sites including SeventyPercent.com:
http://www.seventypercent.com/author/stu_r/
This confluence of whisky and chocolate expertise makes Stuart Robson a pretty special person at the intersection of these two fascinating passions.

Judging at the International Chocolate Awards Semi-Finals

A few weeks ago George Gensler, one of the founders of the Manhattan Chocolate Society and a frequent reviewer on SeventyPercent.com, who I had met at the Compass Box-Pacari pairing event, incredibly generously nominated me to be a judge at the International Chocolate Awards Western Hemisphere Semi Finals. I got to taste an amazing array of chocolates, meet an amazing group of chocolate epicures and play some small role in an important industry review of the stars of high end chocolate. At the conclusion of each judging session I pulled out a mess of sample bottles and did impromptu whisky-chocolate pairing sessions with the three Valharonha chocolate "palate calibration" selections: Guanaja, Manjari and Abinao. Importantly i got to do a one on one whisky chocolate pairing with Clay Gordon, the amazing impresario behind the Chocolate Life online community, the book "Discover Chocolate", and a host of other chocolate projects ranging from chocolate factory start ups to radio presentations on the Heritage Radio Network and the creation of a chocolate factory in Bushwick. These impromptu jam sessions were a total blast and taught me a lot. These experiences gave me the audacious ambition to make my first public whisky event a whisky chocolate pairing event.

Back to the tasting at hand. Francisco & I toured The Morgan and then began the pairings in a private space. The Morgan is a very special place: JP Morgan's private library is one of grandest beaux arts residence spaces ever envisioned. It is alive with culture, beauty, history, and power. Surrounding it is an array of exhibition halls and scholarly resources jammed with the literary and graphic roots and fruits of human civilization. After the tour we were in a fit mental state for appreciation of a different sort.

A dozen chocolate varieties and five whiskies...

A word on methodology: we inverted the order described by Stuart Robson, above on many of the pairings.  We took the chocolate first, let it melt on the palate and then took the whisky.   The order makes a big difference.  When you have the chocolate first, the chocolate initially dominates the palate and the whisky's entry modifies the chocolate's finish.  When you take the whisky first and then let the chocolate melt over the whisky's finish you are putting the whisky's flavors first.  You generally end up in the same place, as you add another sip and another square - but how you get there affects the view.

Pacari Nube 70%

The following tasting notes represent some highlights from our rather extensive session:

Pacari Nube 70% varietal bar (limited to 2000 bars world-wide). Dark acidic blueberry, rich ivy & cilantro herbal notes, and aromatic smoky espresso flavors with a rich velvety mouth feel. This selection paired synergistically with Glenmorangie Nectar D'Or. Nectar D'Or is sweet, light, and intensely floral. I was anticipating an accentuation of the herbal qualities. Paradoxically, the combination was suddenly warm and vividly toffeed - brimming with butter and sugar browning in a pan Maillard reaction flavors.

Piura White Cacao varietal, 70%.  This chocolate is a lovely amber reddish-brown hue because of the white cacao from the Piura region (Pacari's first from beyond Ecuador).  Rich and heady with a potent raw cacao flavor punch: earthy, fermented, with vivid acids, honeyed toffee notes, and plenty of dark cocoa flavors.  This one did the toffee Maillard thing with Nectar D'Or too - even more than the Nube.  A stunning pairing.

Elijah Craig 12 with the Pacari Chili bar: peppery heat squared.  The big oak tannin hit from the EC meshed with the capsicum heat to form a potent mouth burn.  Maybe a bit too potent.  This was somewhere between a mesh and a clash.

We also paired the Elijah Craig 12 with the phenomenal Pacari Salt & Nibs bar (one of my favorite chocolate bars on the planet).  This one was a decent pairing with emergent big caramel flavors

We paired the sherried Port Ellen 23 with a number of bars but the stand outs were The Pacari Manabi 65% bar which meshed with the Port Ellen's lemon and chamois to produce a paradoxical huge caramel note with complex peat and citrus overtones.  Stunning.

When paired with Pacari's landmark 70% Raw bar, however, the same Port Ellen 23 popped out a huge oak wood flavor note that was as surprising as it was delicious.  Where in the world did that come from?

We finished the session with Balcones Brimstone (always put Brimstone last.  Experience has taught me that the titanic finish on Brimstone finishes you palate for anything else).  The killer combinations here were many:

From Pacari's tasty chewing "Fruit Harvest" line - the prototype of the upcoming Fig 60% bar produced an amazing smoky sweet flavor, reminiscent of sizzling bacon wrapped figs.

Brimstone also kills with the Piura bar - coiling sweet and smoke turned hauntingly toffeed.  I have been repeatedly impressed with how well Brimstone pairs with big chocolates.  It also makes an intensely memorable Old Fashioned.  I still prefer it neat, however.  I originally gave Brimstone 3 stars, but as my bottle opened up and I became accustomed to its dramatically novel flavor profile I fell in love and updated it to 4 stars and then to 5.  Now I view it as an indispensable bottle to have on hand at all times.

Melcocha

New in the "Flavors of the Andes" line (the line that includes Pacari's award winning Lemongrass, Chili, and the luscious Salt & Nibs bars) is Melcocha.  Melcocha is a traditional hand pulled caramel taffy made from raw sugar cane, cooked and pulled into ropes of densely chewy goodness.  Embedded in rich Pacari 60% dark chocolate it makes a rich flavor pairing all by itself in the caramel toffee flavor quadrant.  You must chew this bar and the textures are reminiscent of a Toblerone bar - although the flavors are far denser and richer.  This bar paired well with any sweet whisky.  It did particularly well with the Nectar D'Or.

FYI:

Pacari's medals at the International Chocolate Competition World Finals 2012 are:

Bars:

GOLD: Pacari Chocolate (Ecuador) – 70% Raw – Organic and Biodynamic

SILVER: Pacari Chocolate (Ecuador) – 70% Piura-Quemazon

Special awards

GOLD – Chocolate Maker: Pacari Chocolate (Ecuador) – 70% Raw – Organic and Biodynamic

GOLD – Growing Country Chocolate: Pacari Chocolate (Ecuador) – 70% Raw – Organic and Biodynamic

GOLD – Directly Traded Cacao: Pacari Chocolate (Ecuador) – 70% Raw – Organic and Biodynamic

GOLD – Organic: Pacari Chocolate (Ecuador) – 70% Raw – Organic and Biodynamic

GOLD – Best cacao source: Piura-Quemazon

http://www.internationalchocolateawards.com/2012/10/world-final-2012-winners/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=world-final-2012-winners

Compass Box - Pacari Chocolate pairing tasting event at the St. Giles Hotel Court Bar.

Hedonism and Lemongrass chocolate

Last week I posted about the press preview for the Compass Box - Pacari Chocolate pairing event. Tonight the event went down. I have already described the pairings in detail, so in this post I'm going to make two key points: 1) the event was FUN! I have been a shy family oriented stay-at-home-Dad for years. Attending the event was a really entertaining experience.  It was a way to get out and play at a cool venue and have some new experiences. And 2) my experience of the tasting match ups changed - and were different this time - which was a real surprise with a significant lesson.

Francisco Vivar discusses chocolate

As before the event was captained by Robin Robinson, the US brand ambassador for Compass Box Whisky and by Francisco Vivar, the importer of Pacari Chocolate.  The event was held at the St. Giles Hotel Court Bar - a cool room on Lexington and 39th, near Grand Central on the slopes of Murray Hill.  The bar was the setting for the tasting event - and is pretty well stocked.  A lot of nice malts were visible behind the bar.  I might have to go back.

Before the event began I hung out with the interesting and sophisticated NYC crowd.  I met a number of fascinating people including George Gensler, a co-founder of the Manhattan Chocolate Society and frequent reviewer on seventypercent.com - a very cool woman who dashingly sports a very male name, and Henrietta of the hip http://henriettashungry.com  Bloggers and epicures - my kind of crowd.

Robin Robinson lights some peat.

When the show got going Francisco Vivar presented the ecological and community focus of Pacari Chocolate - which is very focused on  sustainability, fair trade, organic cultivation, and use of local Ecuadorian ingredients and manufacturing.  Robin Robinson, by contrast is a whisky showman of the first order.  This time he had props: a model of an oak barrel with a charred interior, samples of oak staves, a bottle of caramel color, and a lump of peat.  Each of the props was introduced at the appropriate time.  The peat, for example, came out when the Peat Monster was poured.  Robinson explained what peat was (colorfully) and then lit the peat and let it smoulder.  The intense smoky aroma vividly brought home where the peatiness of peated malts comes from.

Having already written about the specific pairings took the heat off and I could really relax and enjoy the whisky and the chocolate.  Somehow, a number of things struck me differently:

• Asyla is more than just floral and super thin and blonde.  It has  lychee and citrus herb notes in the nose, a velvety mouth feel and a sweetness, herbs, more lychee, malt sugars and mineral notes on the tongue.  The 70% chocolate it was paired with is smooth if you suck it and not chew it.  It has a rich heady cocoa fermented winey flavor.   This pairing was working better for me today.

•  Great King St. Artist's Blend with golden berries paired nicely again - the lemon in the Artist's Blend picking up very nicely the citrusy sour/sweet of the golden berries.  It's a citrus note harmonic reinforcement.  The dark chocolate blended nicely with the malt foundation and bakery notes in GKSAB.

Robin Robinson loves what he does.

• Hedonism was much more intensely flavored for me today.  Coconut and cocoa butter dominated the nose.  I noticed less of an acid brightness in the flavor - it seemed more smooth and elegant and I got a lot more cocoa and toasted coconut in the flavor as well.  This made me enjoy the Hedonism more to sip - but less as a pairing with the excellent Pacari lemongrass chocolate.  This time the lemongrass dominated the succulent cocoa and coconut flavors of Hedonism and it didn't meld into a new flavor for me today.

• The Peat Monster was even more monstrous with Robinson burning peat and waving the aromatic smoke around the room.  The pairing with the incredible Pink Salt and Nibs flavor of Pacari was amazing again.  The salt air of the whisky and the vivid salt flakes in the chocolate aligned, as did the smoky richness of the cacao and the rich smokiness of the peat in the peat monster.  These two simply work in harmony. 

• Orangerie and Chili chocolate emerged as my favorite this time.  The wicked heat and glorious dueling orange and coriander seed aromatics from the scented whisky and chocolate.  Just a brilliant combination.                                                                                 

The fact that so many things struck me differently shows how mercurial the process of tasting is.  Influenced by mood and perception, and also semi-tangibles like temperature, time of air breathing etc... a multitude of factors bears on subjective enjoyment.  This stressed in my mind the importance of repeated tasting before coming to hard conclusions.

This issue of variability didn't get in the way of my fun, however.   I enjoyed most everything tremendously.  It was a tasty experience that confirmed what I had previously discovered: that food and whisky can pair brilliantly.  It is a lesson well worth learning.

Compass Box Whisky and Pacari Chocolate Pairing event preview

 There's been a growing zeitgeist of chocolate whisky pairing lately in the whisky blogosphere.  Part of it is that there is a growing appreciation for excellent whisky and a growing interest in high end chocolate - particularly ultra dark and high cacao offerings.  But, more than that, there is a growing awareness that fine whiskies can go with food - both to the enhancement of the whisky - and the food.  Here are a couple of recent blog posts that explore this synergy:

http://www.scotchdrammer.com/2012/02/experiment-pairing-chocolate-and-scotch.html
http://www.connosr.com/distilled/issue-2/pairing-whisky-with-chocolate/

Now - that's the zeitgeist.  It isn't me.  Personally, I normally detest having good whisky with food.  I don't want anything to distract from the pure flavors of distilled spirit.  I also find that distilled spirits wallop the palate which pretty severely alters the experience of the food.  However in a carefully wrought pairing, that's the whole idea.  The flavors combine into something new.  I'll admit I was skeptical about this chocolate/whisky pairing thing until I had a first hand experience.  If you're in New York next week, you can too.
 
A fun whisky and chocolate pairing event will be going down on the evening of March 27, 2012: the Pacari Chocolate & Compass Box Whisky pairing event at the St. Giles Hotel in New York from 5-7pm.  Tickets are $35 on line.  That's a pretty decent price to taste an extensive flight of nice whisky - and a group of very tasty chocolate bars and enrobed exotic fruits.  But this is going to be a bit more than just a flight of whisky and some chocolate - some real thought has gone into the specific pairings in this event.

How do I know?  In my capacity as a whisky blogger I attended a press preview of this event and I'll give you the full lowdown (thanks, Whisky Woman, for providing the opportunity!). 

Amanda Diepeveen of ays by the cornucopia of Compass Box whisky and Pacari chocolate.

The whiskies here are the Compass Box range.  These are John Glaser's iconoclastic collection of delicious concoctions of blended malt and grain whiskies, or just blended malt whiskies, or just grain whiskies.  There is some careful barrel selection going on here - but the real magic seems to be in the barrel aging of the blends - in first fill American oak.  The floral vanilla oak notes are a thread which binds the line together.  Another common attribute is a deft light touch and smooth, short, non-bitter finishes.  It's this latter attribute that make Compass Box whiskies so well suited to a chocolate pairing.

The chocolates in the pairing are the organic fair trade Ecuadorian Pacari chocolates.  This company specializes in raw, ultra dark chocolate that has the clear flavor signature of the nibs.  They utilize local and characteristic Andes fruits and spices in their products to bring a sense of terroir.  As a man who regularly eats raw cacao nibs, I really appreciate how closely the flavor profile of Pacari hews to the flavors of whole raw cacao.  It's masterful stuff.  If any chocolate has a chance at standing up to a mouth full of straight whisky it's this stuff.

The show was MC'ed by Compass Box's US brand ambassador Robin Robinson and Pacari's Francisco Vivar.  They are a couple of jovial and informed showmen.  I've caught Robinson's act before.  He's particularly engaging and entertaining.  If you come to the March 27th event you will be entertained and will probably learn something too.

Here how the pairings go down - full tasting notes of the whiskys and pairings:

Robin Robinson, Compass Box Ambassador, 

pours Asyla.

1) Asyla Malt & Grain blend paired with Raw 70% Cacao: Asyla is pale straw colored with a lightly vegetal (sweet parsley?) and honeysuckle floral nose. Entry is sweet and light with gentle demara sweetness while midpalate brings some malt body with a touch of apple and a chalk mineral almost sauvingnon blanc note and a light flush of spirit heat. Finish is short and gentle. Robin Robinson called it "feminine". I'd agree - she's very blonde and supermodel pretty and supermodel thin. The chocolate pairing is the unflavored most raw and elemental 70% cacao raw - which has the big winey heady flavor of raw cacao nibs and is so packed with raw nibs that the texture was a bit gritty. This is beautiful chocolate for people who like raw nibs because it keeps that flavor and elevates it. The pairing however was the weakest - only adding spirit heat and a bit of malt glow to the more powerful cocoa flavors.

2) Great King Street Blended Scotch paired with Pacari chocolate covered golden berries: Great King Street is a rich golden yellow. The nose is nice and rich with sweet and salted butter, butterscotch, and sultanas (rich golden raisins). Entry is sweet with toffee, midpalate broadens with slight sherry notes, some bakery notes (apple crisp) mild spirit heat and some oaky vanilla perfume. Finish is gentle and short. No grain burn or any trace of coffey still fishy oniony flavor signature detected. Very nice.  (Great King Street is a potential Johnny Walker Black Label killer and I'll be doing a full review including a head to head of that duo in the very near future.)  The pairing worked with golden berries that have a sultana-like flavor and an addictive crisp texture arising out of crystal sugars and the fibrous berry's dried body - nicely draped with a crisp thin shell of intensely flavored inky dark Pacari chocolate. The pairing put the vibrance of the berries in harmony with the soft fruits of the whisky. Great King has more malt body - so it holds up to the robust chocolate better - plus the berries have less chocolate so the flavors were more equally matched and neither overwhelmed the other.

Pacari's Francisco Vivar (left) and Compass Box's Robin Robinson

3) Hedonism grain Scotch whisky paired with Pacari Lemongrass chocolate bar.
Hedonism is pale gold. Light sherry with spiced notes of clove and allspice on the nose. Entry is bright and sassy with sweet white grape. Expansion is quick and light with coconut, cake batter and toffee. Body is very light. Finish has kiss of oak and vanilla floral note. The pairing here is inspired. The Lemongrass in the chocolate is citrusy and highly aromatic. The bright opening of Hedonism picks it up and their symphony is intensely vegetal, rich, tasty and unexpected. The best matchup of the day - but other good ones follow.

4) Peat Monster paired with Pacari Pink Salt & nibs bar. Peat Monster was even better than I remembered: pale gold in color with a rich nose that hits iodine first, then earthy peat and maritime brine with warm sweetness underneath. Entry is bright and toffee sweet like Caol Ila 12. Then smoke and a rich coffee (with cream and sugar) note followed by a salty ocean breeze. Some nice oak and vanilla on the short gentle finish. The pairing here was a scrumptious dark chocolate loaded with crunchy salt flakes and cacao nibs. The rich smoke, earth, iodine salt whisky meshed beautifully with the big smoky peat.  The brine air in the Peat Monster meshed with the mineral loaded pink salt flakes and rich dark cocoa to form a smoky salty rich chocolate caramel confection that hit my monkey bone - hard.

5) The finale was Orangerie Scotch Whisky (a whisky infused with orange zest, cassia, and clove) paired with Pacari Chilli-Spice bar.  Compass Box's Orangerie reminds me of a drier Cointreau (actually very high praise in my book - Cointreau is one of the finest liqueurs).  Pale gold in the glass with a nose full of rich blood orange, Orangerie keeps the spice hidden like a fan dancer.  The heat of the cassia (cinnamon bark) emerges with the fade of the finish as a cryptic glow.  The pairing here is darkest chocolate studded with chile pepper and coriander seeds.  You can see where this pairing is going, rich bitter orange bitter chocolate sherbert with a wicked kick of heat at the finish in both capsicum and cinnamon dimensions.   Another monster pairing.

Bottom line here - 4 out of 5 of these pairings were total winners in my book.  Personally I wasn't expecting to enjoy the combination of any whisky with any food - but I had my horizons expanded - big time.

The event didn't quite end there.  The full line of Compass Box whiskies were up at the bar and I enjoyed tasting Oak Cross Malt and The Spice Tree malt.  These were my hands down favorites (except maybe the Peat Monster).  I obtained samples so these will be the subjects of full reviews in the coming days.  I feel privileged to have had a preview of this tasting.  It was a great introduction to the concept and practice of whiskey-chocolate pairing.  If you can make it come to the main event on March 27th.  I'll be there.