Review - Potomac Drinking Chocolate

Finally I get to talk about my favorite chocolate maker! Potomac Chocolate has been my favorite since I first tried a bar around 2011, and it's basically just one man, Ben Rasmussen. Originally working out of his basement, he now has a retail shop in Occoquan, VA. He's got single origin bars, milk chocolate bars, flavored bars, cocoa spreads, and even bonbons! It's been a fun adventure watching his small operation grow over the past few years, and his chocolate has remained consistent and absolutely amazing.

You already know I'm a fan of chopping up your favorite chocolate bar and making a drink out of it, but it sure is nice when the chocolate maker does the work for you and offers packets of drink mix. I ordered both the Duarte (Dominican Republic) single origin and the Spiced drinking chocolate.

Also, as I was only enjoying a cup for myself, I cut the directions in half.

First up is the Duarte. You can see what it looks like out of the package. This is real drinking chocolate! I made it with 2% milk. It is, literally, just a cup of bean-to-bar ganache. Very thick, rich, and perfect. The flavors Ben is creating over there in Woodbridge come right through, and are not overpowering or too strong. This is my favorite kind of drinking chocolate, where you can truly taste the artisanal quality.

Sometimes with strong, thick drinking chocolates, when I've finished, I find myself kind of exhausted on sweets for a bit. That's not the case with Potomac. I finished the cup and it was just right.

The ingredients are as pure as the bars - two simple things.

The Duarte has a prominent chocolate fudge flavor, I thought. The tasting notes say "cocoa and red fruit", and I think with the milk preparation, the cocoa really comes through the most. Sometimes when I make a cold chocolate milk, I'll simply use cocoa powder and honey, which really lets the cocoa flavor shine through, unlike the overly sweet, processed flavor of making chocolate milk with store bought syrup. This cup of Duarte reminded me of that, but amplified with the amazing flavor subtleties Potomac is known for. It's definitely got the complexity of a bean-to-bar chocolate, but it's not hitting you over the head with tangy notes or astringent bitterness. This is, of course, why I think Potomac is my favorite maker to begin with. Ben really captures the perfect balance of the specific flavors of the cacao bean while retaining a classic note of dark chocolate.

I wonder if the red fruit will come through more with the water preparation? We'll get to that in a bit.

A couple of years ago I picked up the green mug I'm using here, back before Ben was even making drinking chocolates. The original packaging was a pleasant green wrapper with the now-iconic fish, each bar having a slightly different shade, and this mug matched perfectly. It felt right to still use it, even though the packaging has changed a few times since then. In fact, the packaging has changed yet again since I took these photos! In my memory, I still see Potomac Chocolate as that light shade of green.

Here you can see a variety of Ben's bars: his production line from a few years ago, a few bars of his then-brand-new Cuyagua, Venezuela bar, and a few test bars while he was working out the Cuyagua production. These were a Kickstarter reward!

Now on to the Spiced drinking chocolate!

Again I cut the directions in half, using a digital kitchen scale to measure out half of the 85 grams in the package (well, roughly half). Checking the ingredient list shows you exactly the spices added to the chocolate.

   

It also came out thick like a European drinking chocolate. In my opinion, this means it's a chocolate you should slow down and enjoy, to sip like a dessert. This isn't something you'd grab with a donut, or in a to-go cup as you run out the door. This is an event. This is like opening an expensive bottle of wine (if you're into wine).

I served mine with some rolled wafer cookies and a small variety of Plush Puffs marshmallows, but once I began enjoying it, I savored it by itself. The chocolate needed nothing else.

The Spiced absolutely lived up to expectations. It's wonderful. The package doesn't list the origin of the bean, but I suspect it is the same Duarte bean as the other drinking chocolate. It's fudgey and rich, barely sweetened, and the spice is perfect!


The sea salt, cinnamon, and Aleppo chili pepper, while simple ingredients, add such complexity to this drink. It's got some heat for sure, but it's not the kind of heat that leaves you gasping for cool air afterwards. It's measured and careful, really something different.

So now to try these out with other styles of preparation, the first being my favorite way for most drinking chocolates. I used a full mug of 2% milk and the remaining 41 grams of the Spiced chocolate, which is a very different ratio of liquid to chocolate from what is advised in the instructions. It made a more traditional American style serving of hot chocolate.

And naturally, it's delightful this way. Not strong and powerful, not a concentrated, thick drinking chocolate. Also not very sweet, and the chocolate flavor is still comes through perfectly, along with all the nuances in flavor from the bean-to-bar process. The spice still hits pretty hard, too, giving it a finish to remember.

If I could change anything about it, I'd actually love for the chocolate to be the more prominent flavor rather than the spices. I just love what Ben does with chocolate so much, I want it to be the star. I could probably create that myself by simply making a mixture of the Duarte and the Spiced, or by chopping up a solid bar and adding some of that in.

 I made my last portion of the Duarte with water as instructed on the package. Wow, it's intense and chocolatey, and there's that sharp red fruit tang I was expecting in the earlier preparations! Not overpowering, though, which is very pleasant. Many water based drinking chocolates are strong and sweet and like a punch of concentrated flavor. This one, while more intense than the milk varieties, is not overly strong or sweet. And the portion size recommended on the instructions is just right.

Also part of Kickstarter rewards from years past were t-shirts emblazoned with the current logos and a little crocheted fish! Ben's wife Cyndi made these as an extra bonus during one of the Kickstarter campaigns, and I had to get the green one! I've also been taking the used wrappers and creating laminated bookmarks from them. I've even made some from the older original green packaging. As an avid reader, I can think of no better way to show off wrappers and share my love of craft chocolate!

      

Overall, Potomac Drinking chocolates are a delight, and in my opinion, one of the best in the world. If you love (or are interested in trying) bean-to-bar hot chocolates, you will love this drink. Go get some at the website, and follow them on Instagram. Send a message to Ben, and tell him Melting Mug sent you!

Recipe - Chocolate Frog Mini-Cauldron

Well, potions class didn't start very well today. I was late - again. Professor Snape has warned me a bunch of times, but between the Weasley twins having flooded the east corridors and Peeves throwing rotten pumpkins at everyone trying to go down the main stairway, I had no choice but to take the long way around to the dungeons.

Professor Snape was already angry before I even arrived. His hatred of all things Muggle is well known, so when Professor Dumbledore announced that the next couple weeks would be dedicated to Muggle studies across all classes, we all dreaded potions.

We sat down to find chocolate frogs at our desks. Was this some kind of joke, Professor Snape leaving treats out for every student in class? Not a chance. Today's assignment was to create a popular Muggle hot drink that uses chocolate, and since students bringing sweets into Snape's classroom is strictly forbidden, he was forced to provide them for us.

This drink is apparently just thinned, melted chocolate. Professor Snape could barely bring himself to discuss it, instead letting Millicent Bulstrode talk about it to the class. Hermione and the few other students who were raised by Muggles all seemed really happy that the entire class was dedicated to this chocolate drink.

Opening my chocolate frog, I quickly used a simple stun spell to keep it from hopping away. Neville's frog jumped into one of the old dungeon runoff drains, so Ron and Harry both gave him bits of their frogs.

While some of the other students were chasing their frogs around the room, Susan Bones told us that someone in her family owns a chocolate shop in London, and that Muggles like chocolates in a variety of strengths, meaning the amount of actual cocoa bean in the chocolate. Apparently our chocolate frogs are 70% croakoa, which is similar to cocoa and gives the frogs their magical abilities. More importantly, I got a Salazar Slytherin card! So cool, I needed one! Although Ron got a Herpo the Foul card, which is really rare and even cooler!

Chopping up the chocolate frog felt a bit... umm... gross, I guess. I know we usually eat them anyway, but this kind of felt like torture, even though I know they're not really alive. But there was no way I was going to miss this! Parvati felt bad chopping hers up, so Snape charmed it back to pseudo-life and made her do it while it was squirming around on the table! She was in tears. He's so horrible!

We heated milk in our cauldrons, and just before the milk boiled, added the bits of chocolate frog. They melted quickly and smoothly. Seamus Finnegan somehow managed to catch his hair on fire, and Harry, Ron, and Neville had to cut their recipes by a third, which of course confused Ron to no end. Two students from Ravenclaw somehow caused their frogs to puff up like balloons until they popped! We’ve made things much more complex than this, I don’t know how they managed to screw this up.

Mine turned out pretty good! If I had to complain about any of it, I'd maybe say it was a bit too sweet. It was easy to see why Professor Snape hates it, as bitter as he is. Harry and Hermione also complained that theirs were too sweet, and Hermione instructed us all to add a spoonful of cocoa powder too them, which balanced them out nicely. Apparently she's been to Paris and told us about how the chocolate drinks there are darker and stronger. Naturally, Hermione made the best in class, but Professor Snape still took points from Gryffndor for her attitude when she presented it to him.

Off to History of Magic now. I think we’re learning about some Muggle named Houdini.

(Photography by Kristen Kennedy)

Review - Recchiuti Dark Hot Chocolate

San Francisco confectioner Michael Recchiuti makes a packaged hot chocolate that I keep seeing turn up on lists of the best hot chocolates in the country. Like this list. And this one, too. I'd enjoyed Recchiuti chocolate bars in the past, but didn't know anything about the company or how their product was made. Well, with their drinking chocolate getting this much attention, I certainly couldn't stand idly by and let this one pass me by! I placed my order and anxiously awaited it's arrival.

Speaking of my order arriving, have you ever seen those unboxing videos on Youtube? People order the latest bit of technology and then do a video review that starts with them opening the box and continuing on through powering it up, getting it started, working with it, etc. I figured I'd give it a shot with a hot chocolate!










Everything came packaged very nice and snug, wrapped in bubble wrap and lots of paper padding. And check out that very classy packaging! I love the silver on black.

Michael Recchiuti started his chocolate company in 1997 and in the time since has established himself (and his team) as some of the best chocolate confectioners in the world. When I first came across the bars in a high end chocolate shop, I assumed they were bean-to-bar, but have since learned otherwise. Recchiuti sources their chocolate from Valrhona and E. Guittard.

The instructions are nice and clear on the back of the box. Actually, in browsing their website recently, I've noticed their packaging has changed a little bit, so your box will look slightly different.

The bag is filled with delicious smelling chocolate pistoles. Of course, as always, I tasted a few, eating some normally and savoring a few, letting them melt in my mouth to enjoy the intricacies of this chocolate. Dark and a little smokey, not tangy or fruity at all, which is nice, as I lean more towards the less tangy chocolates. (I call them tangy, but I think high-end chocolate folk call it citrus or red fruit flavors.) On their website, Recchiuti mentions that Varlhona creates a special blended chocolate based on Michael Recchiuti's palette. I wonder if this is that chocolate?

I pulled out the scale and got my measurements just right. That's a lot of chocolate for only a small amount of water!

2 ounces of water isn't very much. It's equivalent to 4 tablespoons. So already I can tell this ratio of ingredients is going to create a very thick, rich drinking chocolate.

And wow, is it ever! Made as instructed, it's a very intense drink. Tangy notes have appeared in the flavor now, and a slight hint of smokiness. And it's very thick. I needed a spoon to enjoy mine. But enjoy it I did! I scraped the cup clean with my spoon. Definitely a very high quality chocolate - dark, but still sweet. They don't give a percentage anywhere on the package, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's around a 60-65%

While I did order the marshmallows to accompany the drink, I found after a first sip that I didn't want them with it. They are delightful marshmallows, to be sure, but this drink screams to be noticed on it's own. As intense as this drink is, cranking it up even further by adding in the strong sweetness of a marshmallow was a bit much. In fact, I actually went and brushed my teeth after this drink.

I also made one with milk, using 3oz whole milk and 3.5 oz of the chocolate. I've learned over the years that my favorite types of drinking chocolate are made with milk. I'd like it to not be a pudding or ganache, but still be thicker and richer than your average hot cocoa.

While heating the milk one, I realized it was still going to be too thick for what I was looking for, so I added more milk, probably another 3oz or so. The finished drink was astounding! Drinkable without a spoon while still being very thick, and extremely rich. The milk made it creamier, which is what I prefer. Wow, what a great hot chocolate! This is not, however, an after dinner hot chocolate, or a morning pick-me-up cocoa. This is a dessert chocolate. Something meant in small portions, to savor every sip, looking for the complexities of the flavor. This is why these amazing chocolate makers are doing what they do, taking chocolate out of the corner candy store and elevating it as something that should be experienced as you would a 5 star dinner or an expensive wine.

I also made this hot chocolate one other way, what's become my favorite way to enjoy almost all drinking chocolates. And unfortunately, I did not get pictures of this version. Just a big helping of 2% milk, maybe 2 or 2.5 cups, and then I just dumped in the last 2 or 3 ounces of chocolate I had left. Mmmm, wow. Really, really good. It actually brought out a bit more of that tanginess, and it was very pleasant. It was rich, but not overpowering, and very drinkable. It tasted very much like an bean-to-bar chocolate drink, something handcrafted where the flavor of the bean and the roast of that bean can shine through in the flavor.

I perfectly understand why this hot chocolate has made so many lists of the best hot chocolates, and I certainly rate it up there myself. If you also order the marshmallows, I recommend saving them for days when you make this drink at a very different ratio of milk to chocolate than what is described on the package. And don't forget to tell them you heard about them here at Melting Mug!

Pick it up at their online shop here!

Review - ZenBunni Chocolate

 

Well, this chocolate was certainly an learning adventure. I hope you're ready for something you've never heard of before, because this is about as original as it gets. Here in Los Angeles there's a trendy little street called Abbot Kinney. Lots of artsy places, stores carrying handcrafted products, and a coffee shop or two. And, happily, a little cubby hole of a chocolate shop called ZenBunni.

ZenBunni is a biodynamic chocolate company in Venice, CA, established in 2007. This was the first time I've ever come across the word biodynamic in relation to chocolate. Reading their website about how they source all their ingredients, I learned that biodynamic farming involves spraying the soil with crystal-infused water and takes into account the "influences and the rhythms of the sun, moon, and planets". The name ZenBunni comes directly from the two founders, Bunni and Zen. Everything they use is organic, raw, vegan, gluten free, and free of any refined sugars. Yep, I said raw. Meaning they do not roast their cocoa beans. And when they grind them, they do it slower, so the temperature doesn't get as high as it does with typical cacao processing. Heck, they even use omnidegradable packaging with vegetable ink!

The packages also have little descriptions on them of symptoms or issues that each chocolate should help with. For example, Mocha Mucha says it helps with fat burning, brain activating, cardiovascular protection, and increasing energy. I'm not sure if a tiny chocolate bar can really help with these types of things, but hey, who am I to judge.



I picked up a few bars during my first visit. Mucha Mocha, which includes biodynamic and organic hand-ground espresso, maple crystals, 70% cacao, and cane jaggery (and seems to now be called Mystic Mocha). Kathmandu Chai has biodynamic and organic ashwaganda, tulsi, vanilla, zenbunni chai spices, 70% cacao, and cane jaggery. Lavender Lamuria, which contains biodynamic and organic lavender flowers, salt, lavender labyrinth oil, 70% cacao, and cane jaggery.

So you can see there's a lot of unconventional ingredients in there. Not that this is a bad thing, of course. It's kind of neat and fun. The flavors are definitely original and the chocolate itself has a nice, not too sweet flavor. While all the ones I picked up were 70% chocolate, they taste like they could be 75%. Hopefully you also noticed in those ingredient lists above, instead of sugar, they are sweetened with cane jaggery. Basically, it's the boiled and reduced juice from sugar cane. Same raw materials as regular sugar, just not refined as much.

The bars are tiny, which makes them a bit expensive for their size, since they are $3 a bar.









I'm using two bars of their Original Topanga to make a drinking chocolate. While making the drink, it created an excellent froth, even though I used 2% milk. I tend to think a good froth is a result of using real chocolate, because the cocoa butter is still in there, which is the fat of the cacao bean. I have no idea if that's correct, it just seems to be what I've discovered. If I use cocoa powder as the main chocolate ingredient in a drink, it never froths. If I use whole chocolate, it usually will.

The drink is delicious! It's not very sweet and has a slight nuttiness, with just the slightest notes of almond. It also has a very creamy flavor, typical of drinks where I add some heavy cream to the milk. It's very pleasant to drink, and would make a wonderful midday or after dinner drinking chocolate.

And at this point, I was actually going to publish this post. Then, before I could, at my wife's workplace Christmas dinner, her coworker Angela surprised us with gifts of ZenBunni's actual packaged drinking chocolate! When I had visited, they hadn't yet been making this product. We left with the Kathmandu Chai Coco. I've enjoyed chai-infused drinking chocolates here on the blog before, and once I opened this package, like the other ones, I was blown away! The aroma of that chocolate mixed with the complexity of the chai spices is just magical. 

The packaging is extraordinary! Amazing artwork on the front, while the back has a bit of a Harry Potter feel, complete with a magical tale of creating the drink in a stupa high in the mountains overlooking Kathmandu.

In the instructions, they mention adding in a touch of grass fed butter or ghee. I made it as recommended, and even added that spoonful of butter made from the milk of grass fed cows.

Wow, creamy and amazing! Putting the butter in, I was a bit skeptical that I would be able to notice it, but in the time since my first mug of the drink, I've made it without the butter, and I really think it made it much creamier. It's really a wonderful drink, very relaxing and aromatic, and definitely out of the range of ordinary hot chocolates. They also have a Shiva Rose Coco, and I can't wait to have a sip of that! 

This drinking chocolate is definitely recommended, and if you order, be sure and mention you heard about them here on Melting Mug. And if you try it, please come back and let me know what you thought of it.