Our Spiced Rum chocolate wins TWO 2020 International Chocolate Awards

We were thrilled to hear that our Spiced Rum chocolate, launched last Christmas and hugely popular with our customers, has won not just one but two awards in the British Chocolatier competition of the International Chocolate Awards making it our 100th award winner since we first started entering awards back in 2003! 

It won a Silver Medal and also a Special Award for use of local ingredients which we were delighted with, as it is great to be recognised for working with local producers.

This chocolate is one of our local collaborations, this time with Gemma & Russ of the Two Drifters Distillery in Exeter.
They distill rum from molasses and we thought their dark rum would work brilliantly in a chocolate, and we were right! They ferment 100% molasses and distil it in their bespoke warehouse near Exeter Airport. In September 2019, they took the decision to stop producing beer (which they did alongside the rum for a few months) and move to 100% rum, since then they haven’t looked back and even converted their brewery equipment into a distillery, they are now able to make over 1800 bottles a week, so you know where to go if you want a bottle of rum folks!

To make our Spiced Rum chocolate, we steep raisins in their rum and add a few spices too - nutmeg, clove and cinnamon - to create a gently spiced flavour. We then mash this mixture so that we keep the texture of the gloriously sticky raisins and blend it with our house Madagascar 67% dark chocolate. Emma then pipes this fabulous soft, boozy, chocolatey concoction into each mould by hand before they are sealed, turned out of the mould and then decorated by hand by Jacqui & Dan. We use edible shimmer and natural colours (curcumin & spirulina blended with cocoa butter to create the green splatters) and apply the decoration with paintbrushes and toothbrushes (yes you read that right!).

So not only are these chocolates rich, fruity, gently spiced and warming, they are also naturally vegan-friendly. Happy days indeed! Gemma & Russ are thrilled that their rum is in our award-winning chocolate and we love working with them.

 

The Spiced Rum chocolates are in our 67% Dark chocolate bauble, our Vegan Festive Collection Boxes, our Fresh Christmas Selection boxes, our Christmas Cascades and now also qualify to be in our Award-winners Sharing box. So lots of opportunity to try them!