Chocolates and alcohol have long been fantastic ways to end a meal on their own, but their pairing ultimately makes for one of the most indulgent ways to get even more out of these treats. This is because chocolate can help bring out more of high quality spirits, and vice versa due to their complementary flavours. It’s important to know that not all spirits complement any kind of chocolate – certain spirits bring out the best in certain chocolates, but it’s not necessarily simple to know which ones suit. In this article, we take a look at a few of these pairings to give you a better place to start your own alcohol and chocolate combinations!
Considering brown spirits
The popularity of liquor chocolates in Australia should already give you a good idea about how good this combination can be – think Baileys Original Chocolates, Prestat`s London Gin Truffles or Domior Dark Chocolate with whiskey – but sometimes a lot more fun and creativity can be had in working out some unusual and rewarding combinations on your own (plus you can adjust the levels of alcohol and chocolate to suit your own tastes). To get started with coming up with your own pairings, try to keep in mind that dense rich barrel-aged spirits like whisky or aged rum contain a lot of the same natural vanilla and caramel tones found in chocolate due to the wood barrels they are stored in, so the more complex the chocolate, the more complex the brown spirit you should generally choose. If you enjoy your rum, milk chocolate often complements the intense flavours (think butterscotch and nice, thick caramel) that the barrel aging process comes out without muting them altogether. If you’re more of a whisky drinker, whether it be bourbon or a good scotch, you should instead be opting for nuttier chocolates, such as those with some high quality almonds or walnut.
More alcohols to enjoy chocolate with
Although it may surprise some, chocolates are not just ideal when paired with brown spirits – lighter, fruitier chocolates can be very well complemented with mezcal, with much of this due to the excellent play between the fruitiness and smokiness that this combination provides. If you enjoy white chocolate more, don’t think we’ve forgotten you! The cocoa butter that makes up white chocolate, as you might imagine, is paired well with the clean juniper-driven qualities of a good gin, where these subtle flavours very much work in each other’s flavour to be bigger than the sum of their respective parts. White chocolate also accompanies a good white tequila well for much the same reason.
Have you paired your favourite spirit with chocolate yet?
Considering that many people’s favourite spirits have an excellent complementary kind of chocolate, you’d be crazy not to go out and try some combinations to see what works best for you! It’s a good idea to remember that if you don’t want to commit to a single king of spirit and chocolate combination, finding a box of high quality liquor chocolates is definitely the next best thing, plus you’ll have the opportunity to try a lot of different and interesting liqueurs already paired with chocolate, making it very much a win win situation for sure!
