Candy Bar Lab

Vosges first caught my eye when I found their Bacon Chocolate Bar. It’s a bold concept for a candy bar, but not one I was going to try seeing as how I’m a vegetarian. The Barcelona Bar on the other hand is a fine substitute for me. It has sea salt and smoked almonds so it should have the smokey, crunchy, and salty properties of bacon.

Structure
A thin, “deep milk chocolate” bar chopped hickory smoked almonds and sea salt mixed in.

Texture
The milk chocolate is smooth and rich. The almonds are chopped really fine - about the same size as the large sea salt crystals. Between the two, they add a couple types of crunchiness that give the bar some textural interest. I also like how thin the bar is. It gives it a delicate feel that’s easy to bite through.

Taste
Wow, this was really delicious. The 45% cacao chocolate is deep and rich and there’s quite a bit of sea salt. I’m a total sucker for chocolate and salt together. The only disappointment was that the hickory smoked almonds weren’t that noticeable. There was a slight aroma and aftertaste of smokiness, but I would have liked it to be more prominent.

Verdict
I stopped myself (barely) from eating the whole bar in the first sitting. It was hard though, I really wanted to eat the whole thing right away. This definitely gets a thumbs up from me. I have another Vosges candy bar in the house right now, the Calindia, that I’m now really looking forward to.

I mentioned in my last Kingsbury Chocolates post that I would possibly try out the ChocObama Bar in the future. Well, thanks my friend who picked one up for me, here it is.

Structure
A mint-flavored milk chocolate bar with a dark chocolate Barack Obama bust printed on the back.

Texture
Nothing special about the texture other than it’s really smooth milk chocolate.

Taste
Wow, the mint flavor is REALLY intense - like I just brushed my teeth with Altoids. I couldn’t really taste the chocolate in fact because the mint really took over.

Verdict
This is a quality product with really smooth milk chocolate and while the mint flavor is intense, it doesn’t taste good. Ultimately, I’m giving this a negative review because it just doesn’t work as a candy bar. These should be served in smaller pieces as after dinner mints. There’s just no way for one person to eat the whole bar - especially in one sitting.

This is my second shot at a lime flavored, dark chocolate candy bar. The first one by Choxie didn’t quite live up to my hopes, but hopefully this one by Dagoba will find the right balance of taste and texture.

Structure
A 10-segment, molded dark chocolate bar with lime flavoring and small bits of macadamia nuts mixed in.

Texture
The macadamia nuts were completely unnoticeable. In fact, I ate a few sections of the bar and started writing this post before I took another glance at the picture and noticed they were in there. That’s how unnoticeable they were. You’re pretty much getting plain chocolate with this product. Fortunately, the chocolate was rich and very smooth.

Taste
The macadamia nuts were once again unnoticeable. The lime flavor was VERY subtle at first, but became increasingly noticeable on the finish. The chocolate was delicious (better than Choxie), so I wasn’t too upset by the light application of lime flavor.

Verdict
This candy bar desperately needs some texture, which it should have gotten from the macadamia nuts. They simply needed to be bigger and more plentiful. The lime flavor was a little underwhelming, but that can be forgiven because the chocolate is pretty good. In the end, I would have preferred a plain dark chocolate Dagoba bar to this effort.