Review - Twentyfour Blackbirds

Last summer my wife and I got away for a weekend to Santa Barbara, CA. Santa Barbara is a gorgeous little beachfront town, and it always feels like vacation there. And as it turns out, it's becoming a bit of a hot spot for artisanal chocolate!

On a previous trip to Santa Barbara, we had discovered an amazing chocolate shop called Chocolate Maya. Nothing but artisanal chocolate from floor to ceiling, Chocolate Maya is kind of a ground zero for chocolate lovers. So of course, when we are in town, it's always on our list to visit.

However, on this particular trip, we discovered another shop. Isabella Gourmet Foods is a great little grocery off of State Street. They sell really great local and artisanal products out of their very cozy shop. I picked up some twenty-four blackbirds drinking chocolate and a canister of Golden Door Ginger Cookies.

Twenty-four blackbirds was started by Michael Orlando while he was busy working as a marine scientist. In a short time, the chocolate won, and he moved to making chocolate full time. It didn't take long for his small company to begin selling a drinking chocolate.

The ginger cookies were also made locally by an interesting company called Golden Door. Their website is a bit overwhelming. I can't tell what exactly they do. They seem to be a resort destination, they have a speaker series, they sell food products... a bit of everything, I guess.

To complete the full Santa Barbara drinking chocolate experience, I picked up a handmade mug and creamer at another local craft store. I sadly didn't get the woman's name who made them, and cannot read it from the bottom of the stoneware.

I absolutely love the colors of them, and the faces are made completely by hand, with the designer using her fingers and fingernails to create them. Really beautiful work!

So lets talk about that chocolate!

It comes with an instruction card and some bits of information about how the chocolate was made. Hand wrapped in craft paper and tied with twine, the packaging is minimal and perfect. Their regular eating bars are decorated with bird artwork and molded with a beautiful leaf impression.

Also on the card is instruction on making a chocolate syrup from the bars. The bars are small, 1 ounce each, which lets you perfectly control how much you're going to make. Simple and to the point, the smooth, flat bars smell amazing as you unwrap them.

I made mine with 2% milk, and I used the creamer to bring along a bit of heavy cream, which I added as I enjoyed the drink, giving it a creamier, less concentrated flavor and bringing out different flavor notes.

The cookies were the perfect snack to serve with it, as well. I'm not a huge fan of serving chocolate cookies or snacks with a chocolate drink, so the strong ginger flavor really paired well with it. And the cookies are crisp, which, of course, is perfect for dunking!

I can't recommend twenty-four blackbirds drinking chocolate enough. It's a really amazing drink, and is definitely helping to raise the bar of what should be expected of a hot chocolate. This is top-of-the-line hot chocolate, the exact kind of drink that made me realize everything that was wrong with hot cocoa from a packet. If you like hot chocolate, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Review - Chuao Spicy Maya Hot Chocolate

After trying out that recipe for ancient xocolatl, I thought I'd review one that showed just how far spicy hot chocolates have come in over two thousand years.

The Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego is where I found this one. Chuao's Spicy Maya hot chocolate. While there on a weekend getaway, my girlfriend and I found a great chocolate shop on the bottom floor of the hotel, and this tin was just sitting there innocently. I purchased way more than I should have at that store, and I just couldn't leave this there without trying it. Peppers in hot chocolate was new to me at the time.

Wow! This stuff is just amazing! Hot chocolate with some kick! This is what a sweet, rich, spicy hot chocolate should taste like!

I would later learn that Chuao Chocolatier (pronounced chew-WOW) is right there in San Diego, founded by two brothers from Venezuela, Master Chef Michael Antonorsi and Richard Antonorsi. In 2011, Chuao won the sofi Awards Gold Award for Outstanding Hot Beverage with this firey chocolate drink.

There's a couple peppers in this, pasilla chile and cayenne, but what gives this hot chocolate its kick is the cayenne. The xocolatl recipe I made previously used a green chile, which didn't have quite the heat that the cayenne pepper brings to this party. There's a very distinct difference!

It's definitely got some heat, and you're going to feel it. If you're not a fan of spicy things, this may not be for you. I love spicy stuff, and this hot chocolate is just right. Not a relaxing cup of chocolate, this one's going to wake you up!

I only made the recommended serving, a 1/2 cup, and my throat was definitely burning a little bit after finishing it. In a good way, of course! It's rich and chocolaty (they use a blend of Venezuelan chocolates), and while the peppers give it some bite, the flavor of the peppers do not overpower the chocolate. I added in the last of my homemade marshmallows. (I'll post the recipe soon, since I have to make some more.)

Chuao has some chocolate cafes around San Diego county, so if you're down in that area, check them out. Around Los Angeles, I've spotted this hot chocolate in some Whole Foods stores, so keep your eyes open and check that cocoa section! Chuao's chocolate bars are pretty insane, as well. They have a potato chip bar, a honeycomb bar, maple bacon, and even a bar with pop rocks in it!

There's a bunch more spicy hot chocolates out there I'm going to review in the future. If you like this one, stay tuned. There's a wide variety!

Recipe - Xocolatl, the Original Hot Chocolate

When chocolate was first created from cacao beans over two thousand years ago, it was in the form of a bitter beverage served hot or cold. The first form of solid chocolate wasn't created until the late 18th century. So for the majority of chocolate's existence in human culture, we've been drinking it.

The word "chocolate", according to Wikipedia, comes from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. The word they used was "xocolatl", made up of the words "xococ" meaning bitter and "atl" meaning water or drink.

When I first began researching hot chocolate recipes, I came across some modern ones that attempted to recreate the flavor of those original hot chocolates created by the Aztecs and Mayans. As soon as I saw them, I knew I'd be making one! They sounded pretty bizarre for a hot chocolate.

Let's get started making a modern version of the original hot chocolate!

You're going to need:

2 3/4 cups water
1 green chile pepper, sliced
1/8 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Looking at that ingredient list, you can see we're working with the same basic stuff that would have been available two thousand years ago. Cocoa, vanilla, and pepper.

Put 3/4 cup of water and the sliced green chile (including the seeds) in a pot and bring it to boiling. Let it boil for 5-10 mins, so the water really takes on the chile flavor.

Strain it to remove the chile and the seeds, then put the water back in the pot. Add in the other 2 cups of water, put it on medium heat, and bring it to a boil again. As it's heating up, whisk in the vanilla extract. The vanilla mixed into the pepper water smells really good! I was surprised, I didn't think it would be very appetizing.

Finally, once it's boiling, add in the cocoa powder and keep whisking for another 5 minutes or so. You'll notice the mixture froths easily, but it's not a very thick froth.

This one is probably the healthiest hot chocolates you'll ever come across. No sugar at all, and the only thing even close to a sweetener is the vanilla. Unsweetened cocoa is actually very good for you. It has more antioxidants that green tea, blueberries, or wine, and can help lower cholesterol.

However, this hot chocolate isn't what us modern folk would consider delicious. It's not as bad as I thought it would be, but it wasn't great, either. The chile adds an interesting flavor that works well with the cocoa, but this drink reminded me more of thin, bitter coffee than it did a thick, yummy hot chocolate.

Hahahaha, in fact, after a few tastes, I didn't even want to drink all of it. I added in a few spoonfuls of sugar and it became much more enjoyable! If you want to sweeten it without ruining the healthier aspect of it, try blackstrap molasses or date sugar. Those are both amazingly healthy sweeteners!

If you like this hot chocolate a lot, try it with the actual versions of the ingredients the Aztecs and Mayans would have used. Get some cocoa nibs and grind them up into cocoa liquor, and use a vanilla bean or two instead of the liquid vanilla extract.

What a fun experiment! And now that we have an idea of where hot chocolate came from, we can really appreciate what the Europeans did for it by adding in sweeteners in the 17th century.

And don't worry, the next recipe I post will be a sweet, delicious cup of creamy awesomeness!