New York City Patric Chocolate Events in March

I will be in New York City on the 30th of March for two chocolate-related events. First, I will be speaking at 5 pm, at one of chocolate expert Clay Gordon's Meet-Ups. The talk will cover both fine chocolate in general and Patric Chocolate's processes in particular, and of course we will be tasting both the 67% and 70% bars. This event will be limited to 30 people due to room-size limitations, so please don't wait too long before registering for the event or it may be full. More information can be found HERE.

If two chocolate events in one day doesn't phase you, then plan on making it to The Chocolate Collection: An Evening of Tasting at 7:30 pm, led by culinary historian Alexandra Leaf, chocolate expert Clay Gordon, and wine expert Costas Mouzouras of Gotham Wines, wherein Patric Chocolate will be tasted, discussed, and paired with various fine wines. I will be on hand in order to field any questions related specifically to the manufacture of the chocolate.

I hope to see many of you at both events!

Best,

Alan McClure

Slow Food St. Louis: Chocolate and Beer; What More Could You Ask For?

(Above: Speaking to STL Slow Food at the Schlafly Tap Room)

Due to Valentine's craziness I am a week behind on reporting about the event, but it was so much fun that I'm going to belatedly share anyway.

The chocolate talk and tasting seminar was held at the Schlafly Tap Room in conjunction with the St. Louis convivium of Slow Food, and upon arriving, we--my wife and I--got a warm welcome from the Tap Room's head brewer Stephen Hale. Stephen showed us around the brewery as we got to talking about the combination of beer and chocolate and the difficulties involved in creating a chocolate-flavored beer, including issues such as iron content of chocolate--it's high--which could dissolve into the beer, oxidize, and create a hazy appearance--an unwelcome occurrence in most beers. After talking beer, we got set up for talking chocolate.

Following a brief Slow Food meeting things really got moving as a long and interesting discussion commenced, with participants asking countless perceptive and intriguing questions from the role that terroir plays in cacao flavor, even including natural yeast strains that could impact fermentation, to the various processes employed in small-scale or "micro" chocolate manufacture. After the discussion, we continued with the education by tasting the two currently available Patric Chocolate offerings as we talked about what tastes and aromas set them apart despite their shared origin--Madagascar. As usual, it was a true joy to see the expressions on people's faces as they searched for and identified various flavor notes and, often, realized that they had never tasted them in chocolate before.

If you would like to read more about the night and the reactions of some of the attendees, it has also been written about on the St. Louis Slow Food site, and a blog called the Cupcake Project.

Also, since--due to a recent article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch--many of you who are reading this blog are located in and around St. Louis, let me urge you to seek out Slow Food St. Louis if you are a lover of fine food. If you would classify yourself as gourmet, gourmand, or foodie, and you want to meet and talk with like-minded people who are making a difference in St. Louis food--and beverage--culture, then please contact them! It really will be worth your time.

(above: Trying to pluck a cacao pod off a photo of a tree
through sheer force of will--it didn't work)

I'd like to thank all STL Slow Food members, Sara Hale for organizing things, Rebecca Marsh for her input, and the aforementioned Stephen and Sara Hale for their incredible hospitality!

Patric Chocolate's Saturday in KC:

Yesterday I spent a beautiful, chocolate-filled day in Kansas City. I had the fortune to be invited by Jasper Mirabile for his Valentine's Day radio show Live! from Jasper's Kitchen on 710 AM. We talked a bit about micro-batch fine chocolate, the processes employed here at Patric Chocolate, and what makes them different from those of mass-market chocolate. It was really a great time, and after the show I was lucky enough to have a group of about 75 fine chocolate loving Kansas City residents give me their undivided attention back at Mirabile's KC restaurant--called Jasper's--for a fine chocolate talk and tasting seminar that expanded upon many of the themes from the radio show.

Though I was expected to talk for about 45 minutes, I, due to my notorious wordiness when it comes to chocolate, was unable to keep it to under about an hour and a half. To my delight, however, everyone was not only patient but filled with a multitude of incredibly perceptive questions that really helped to drive the point home about the differences between fine chocolate and what one may find in the supermarket aisles.

And the chocolate tasting that came at the end of the talk truly seemed to be an eye opening experience for many people, which made me happy to no end. We all sampled Patric Chocolate's micro-batch 70% and 67% Madagascar bars and two supermarket bars. It was a joy to watch everyone's faces as they tasted flavors in the Madagascar bars that they had never experienced before, but also as they realized how little flavor of the cacao is actually present in common chocolate. One attendee, upon tasting the difference between the four bars, proclaimed that one of the common market brands didn't even taste like chocolate! Imagine that: chocolate that doesn't even taste like chocolate; Quelle horreur, the French would say!

Anyway, I had such a great time and got to meet so many warm and enthusiastic chocolate lovers that I would gladly return to KC--and Jasper's whose Italian cuisine is good enough to make a grown man cry--anytime!
(above: One section of the KC chocolate talk crowd)

Comments from attendees of the Patric Chocolate, Jasper's-hosted chocolate seminar are welcome!

Kansas City, MO Chocolate Tasting Workshop:

This coming Saturday, December 1st, at Magazines and Coffee on 1722 Main Street in Kansas City, MO, our very own Alan McClure, chocolate maker of Patric Chocolate, will be conducting a chocolate tasting of the first bar in Patric Chocolate's line of fine dark chocolate bars, the 70% Single Origin Madagascar bar, starting at 2 pm.

As one of only 5 or 6 micro-producers of chocolate in the US, Alan will be give a brief talk on quality in fine chocolate and the aspects of fine chocolate production that are most conducive to such quality. Alan will also field questions from attendees about any chocolate-related issues.

This event is standing room only, free to the public, and no reservations are being accepted. Once again, the event information is:

What: Chocolate Tasting Workshop led by chocolate maker Alan McClure of Patric Chocolate
Where: Magazines and Coffee on 1722 Main Street, in Kansas City, MO
When: Saturday, December 1st, at 2 pm

See you there!

10th Annual New York Chocolate Show: One Chocolate Maker's Perspective

Alan McClure, chocolate maker of Patric Chocolate, walked the 10^th Annual New York Chocolate Show for part of each day from the 9^th-11^th. Here are his thoughts on the show:

The Metropolitan Pavillion & Altman Building was crowded full of chocolate lovers searching for chocolate revelations, and whether they found them or not, they had quite a lot to choose from. In fact, it seemed that every type of chocolate product from artisan-made limited edition truffles to micro-produced fine dark chocolate bars were available. However, there were also a good number of factory-produced chocolate products from much larger companies, and for the first time, gigantic chocolate manufacturers such as Mars were to be found giving out sample upon sample of some of their new dark chocolate products. Yet, despite all of this chocolate, there was a noticeable lack of products from many foreign chocolatiers and bean to bar chocolate manufacturers. Even Valrhona, one of the most well-known, quality, French chocolate manufacturers, was nowhere to be seen, and smaller manufacturers from both Italy and France were also absent. Even more interestingly, a number of talented American-based chocolatiers who had been present at the show in years past had decided to skip the event this year. One wonders if perhaps the show is starting to cater more and more to the consumer of mass-market chocolate rather than to those who have a particular love for fine chocolate. Only time, and next year’s show, will tell.

Regardless, there were still a decent number of what Chocolate in Context's Emily Stone has called “chocolate wonks” at the show, and I did my best, over the course of the three-day show, to track them down for chocolate-related conversations covering such topics as bean to bar chocolate manufacture and the future of fine chocolate. Clay Gordon, author of the book Discover Chocolate: The Ultimate Guide to Buying, Tasting and Enjoying Fine Chocolate, noted that chocolate folks are some of the happiest and nicest people that one can meet, and this happily turned out to be true almost without exception.

(Above photo: Alan (left) talking to Clay Gordon about the new American micro-chocolate movement)

In addition to talking chocolate, however, I was also interested in seeing whether there would be any new, up-and-coming, bean to bar makers at the event; those of which I had not yet heard. Though I keep pretty good tabs on what is going on in the United States, I was expecting a surprise here or there. However, it seems that no such new companies were in the crowd. That said, I continue to stand behind my belief that we are seeing the beginning of a new fine chocolate making movement in the United States, and I expect that over the next several years we will continue to see serious US-based individuals trying to make a difference in the world of fine chocolate manufacture.

One might wonder, though, why it seems that I am forecasting or even wishing for competition, but I don’t see it quite like that. Rather, I think that the more excellent-quality chocolate that is made in the US, and the more people who have access to such chocolate, the better off all of the small chocolate makers will be. This increase in exposure of people to fine chocolate will result in an inevitable education regarding appreciation of fine chocolate, and a larger percentage of Americans will be able to distinguish between the quality products of such micro-producers and those of the mass-producers that simply pretend.

As Alexander Morozoff, editor of CocoAroma, noted when I talked to him some months ago, there are scores of small but serious wineries in the US that do wonderful business, and there is room for all of them. Why shouldn't the same apply to the world of chocolate?

It's not that I expect there to be hundreds of micro-producers of fine chocolate anytime soon, but there is plenty of room for a few more of us, and hopefully next year at the NY Chocolate Show I will be seeing at least one or two new faces who are just as excited about fine chocolate making as those of us who were there this year. After all, can there ever be too much excellent chocolate?

(Above photo: Alan holding two samples of his just-released 70% Madagascar bar. Luckily the upside down bar tasted just fine!-Photo by Kerry Beal)