|
IN THIS ISSUE
Valentines Specials for the Chocoholic
Just in time for Valentines, two great new ways to say "I LOVE CHOCOLATE"
with chocolate!
Join our Chocoholics Club by February 6th and we'll throw in a 1/4 lb. box of Light
or Dark Chocolate absolutely FREE! Already a club member? We'll give you a special Chocoholic Club Discount on
a 1 lb. box of chocolates!
Our special Chocoholic Label Chocolate is guaranteed to please! Order some today for your sweetie or yourself!
http://www.virtualchocolate.com/chocoholicclub
BACK TO TOP
A DARK CHOCOLATE
RAVE
Eating pure chocolate of the highest quality is a nearly indescribable experience. You don't just swallow it, you
court it. Lick around the edges of a dark chocolate bar. Mmmmmmmm. Just barely melted in your mouth, it has so
much flavor it makes you want to laugh with joy, just because its SO GOOD. Chocolate is not just one flavor- its
wind, candlelight, distant cologne, nighttime ocean waves and primal mother earth all experienced in a single,
slow-as-possible bite.
I remember going to Ghirardelli Square when I was a kid. I expected to see dark chocolate rolling down waterfalls
and swirling in vats. But most importantly, I intended to have a big mug full of melted dark chocolate, taken straight
from the waterfall, slightly warmed. I would just lick it at first, then take a mouthful and swirl it as long as
I could. Aaaahhhh. Only then would I swallow and take another sip. It was an incredible disappointment to find
that all they had to sell were ice cream sundaes, regular hot chocolate and the usual candy bars in wrappers. Didn't
these people understand chocolate?!
Now that I'm grown, I can melt my own chocolate, or at least hold it in my mouth until I get the full flavor experience.
But what I can't understand is why anyone would want to dilute that sensation. To catch the subtleties of the full
flavor, you need to minimize unnecessary fillers. Milk chocolate tastes like milk, sugar and an indefinable potential
 of something that you can't quite get at. Plus, it kind of sticks in your throat. Made for the masses, milk chocolate
includes just enough of what counts for people to keep coming back (although maybe what they are experiencing is
all that sugar, not the chocolate). And shortening! How can a lump of lard possibly contribute to a positive chocolate
experience?!
55-70% cocoa solids are what to look for on the ingredient label. Granted, those not acclimated to bittersweet
complex flavors should maybe start a touch lower and work their way up: total fulfillment all at once can render
one incapable of appreciating the nuances. But to those who know how to appreciate it, dark chocolate is the only
chocolate.
Vote here for light
Vote here for dark
Vote here for both
BACK TO TOP
DARK AND LIGHT
HAVE THEIR TIME AND PLACE
Deep in conversation with the 10th muse, we began to explore the protagonist
relationship between dark and milk chocolate. Which is better? Is either? What sprang immediately into my mind
(and therefore out my mouth) was that we need both milk and dark chocolate. Let me explain why.
Like many, I'm a "night person" that has to be up during the
day. For me, chocolate is inexorably tied to my circadian rhythms. Milk chocolate is for daytime. The milder flavors
soothe me in Kisses(c), mochas, and (my personal favorite) cinnamon-scented Mexican Hot Chocolate. I simply can't
handle the complex taste of a dark chocolate truffle in the afternoon. It gums me up as I cry through sticky lips,
"got milk?"
Dark chocolate, on the other hand, takes a mature (and awake) palate.
I will never forget the conclusion to a Vintner's Dinner where I was (for my first time) served an outstanding
and robust cabernet sauvignon with a dark chocolate, flour-less torte. The two flavors were a sophisticated marriage
of sweet and dry, full-bodied and rich. Since that night,
I have reserved consumption of dark chocolate for those hours when I
am fully awake and able to taste all the complexity of the particular dessert. When I am in that half-awake, autopilot
state, it is milk chocolate I crave.
BACK TO TOP
VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE HERE!
You've heard our opinions! Now it's time to let the world know what you think!
LIGHT or DARK!
Vote here for light
Vote here for dark
Vote here for both
Thank you for your vote!!
The tally:
Dark: 2888
Light: 2748
Both: 2669
|
Our New Valentines Page
Looking for great virtual cards to send to your sweetie? check out our new Valentines
Page for a list of cards and wallpapers with your special someone in mind!
Just Go to:
http://www.virtualchocolate.com/valentines
"COME TO THE LIGHT"
I will admit readily, that my first contact with real "dyed in the brown"
chocoholics was recent. True, my wife of 17 years has certainly proven to me that one can find solace, a sense
of nasty "pseudo-sexual" fulfillment and even the occasional medicinal rush from chocolate. But, it was
not until I joined forces with the founders of Virtual Chocolate, that I really understood the difference between
the two worlds of chocolate, the light and the dark. Perhaps "two worlds" is too light a statement. Words
like vice, drug, obsession, Jones and "chocolate monkeys on their backs" are more apt. Then again, a
simple correlation between good and evil is all that is required, and is at the very root of this battle between
the light and the dark side of chocolate.
In my twenty plus years as a marketing person, I have known of the "purist" phenomenon. I have seen it
in any number of products from classic Chevy's to countless food and beverage categories. The defining difference
between a common consumer and a true addict becomes evident with the need to rationalize and even scientifically
reason their justification for over-consumption. Chocolate and the driving need for brown speed is no different
(see Chocolate Rave Above). In fact, it is the very difference between a true chocoholics need for DARK chocolate
that is the first indication of something wonderful gone amok.
To prove my point, I will use not one, not two, but THREE examples of how a good thing that starts in the LIGHT
world can go horribly wrong. The three products are easy to guess, coffee, microbrew beer and chocolate. Let's
begin our case with the sheer number of users.
In each case, the LIGHT users completely outnumber the DARK users. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that
the number of people who "leave room for cream and sugar" or get fu-fu specialty coffee drinks like double
half-caf, mocha lattes far outnumber the 
people who take "espresso straight up." There are huge statistics
to prove that "BUD" and "Coors Light" drinkers far surpass lovers of those nasty looking, dark
stout beers. And finally, if dark chocolate lovers outnumbered the light, it would have been called "55-70%
Cocoa Solids, Pennsylvania, instead of HERSHEY, Pennsylvania.
But, there is nothing like the actual "taste-test" to lay waste to any claims of the true dark chocolate
fanatic. I like chocolate. I used to work in a candy store as high school kid. I love all kinds of chocolate, from
white, very milk, Swiss to those wonderful little cookie things with rolled up wafers in them. All contain chocolate.
It's true that my favorite ice cream is "Peppermint Candy," but I do not avoid the chocolate stripe in
the Neapolitan and often add raw Hershey's syrup as a topping. But nothing prepared me for my first taste of real
dark chocolate.
I was in a meeting with my associates, trying to understand what they were so giddy about. The arrival of a new
shipment of samples had plastered smiles that I have only seen in the tent city after a Grateful Dead show (I went
once, but I didn't inhale). Finally after a bit of ribbing, I agreed to taste a bit of what they were talking about,
chocolate with between 55-70% cocoa solids.
Being a first timer and wanting to retain my "hippness," I watched my comrades in chocolate lay the raw
chunks on their tongues, smile, wiggle their toes, giggle and sigh. Knowing I must be in for a treat, I placed
a chunk on my tongue and waited for the "jolt of satisfaction" described to me.
My first instinct was that somebody had placed a large dirt clod in my mouth. No soothing, soft flavor, but rather
a reactionary jolt of caustic bitterness that harkened back to almost every "first try" at something
that was not actually good for you. My first taste of good gin, my first taste of greasy spoon diner coffee, and
my first taste of liver all came back to me with the smirking little voice in my head ringing "you don't understand,
it's an ACQUIRED taste!"
Good, light chocolate is reminiscent of a first kiss. The smooth and sultry sensation coats your tongue with a
flavor and feeling that leaves you wanting more. Dark chocolate is like being surprised by a kiss from your Great
Aunt Nelda after she has had a cigarette. What is supposed to be a sign of affection becomes an act of aggression,
and leaves you wanting to brush your teeth immediately.
So obvious is this difference between light and dark chocolate, that I genuinely worry about my "dark world"
friends. Is this a sign of greater moral failings to come? Are they destined to become the same pathetic minorities
secretly ridiculed by the world because of their stanch dedication to something so foreign to regular people?
We've seen them, microbrew freaks forced to eat their over-stout beer with spoons to prove that dark malted hops
are best. We've witnessed the double espresso junkies licking the nasty slime out of the bottom of their cups,
hoping to quiet their ever-increasing facial tics. What is next? Are we destined to watch friends and family reduced
to a quivering, whining, mass of former humanity while they search the folds of their candy wrappers for missed
flecks of pure cocoa solids?
I say NO! Stop the madness now! Come to the light. The light is good. The Dark is Evil. And while you're at it,
make mine something with caramel and nuts.
Vote here for light
Vote here for dark
Vote here for both
BACK TO TOP
|
