Chocolate & Bourbon Tasting at ChocoVivo

Patricia, the owner

On Tuesday night, I went to a chocolate and bourbon tasting at ChocoVivo, as part of Yes Address LA, Sip Taste LA and EventBrite's series showcaseing local businesses around LA. I'd driven past ChocoVivo several times, since it's fairly close to my apartment, and I've always thought about going on. When I saw this event not only taking place there, but also involving chocolate and bourbon, I knew it was meant to be!

Chocolate grinder

The owner, Patricia, spoke a bit before the tasting began, first about her background - she was an accountant but hated it, and ended up quitting to open ChocoVivo after getting interested in the concept of chocolate being food rather than just candy; then she talked about how the chocolate they have is all made in Mexico, where it's stone ground, the way the Mayans and Aztecs did it. The kind of chocolate we're all used to is made using the European process of refining and conching, and that's what makes that smooth, shiny texture. Because this Mexican-made chocolate is ground, it has a grittier texture, and is more pure.

The first set of tastings came out arranged in order on a flat wooden board. First, we chewed a piece of real sugar cane, and then ate a real cacao bean, before tasting the first chocolate sample. This one was my favorite. The bourbon was really good too. The next chocolate had a raspberry flavor to it. The nibs, on the far right in the picture, were good, but apparently contained a lot of caffeine. Since it was 8 at night and I felt like being able to sleep before dawn, I only tried a couple. Before the next set, we were given a watermelon palate cleanser!

I forgot to take the picture before I ate the chocolate and drank the bourbon, oops!

The next set of bourbons were much stronger, yet still somehow smooth! The chocolates were, of course, delicious as well. It was fun to eat and drink in one order to taste what flavors come out, and then reverse the order to see how different it was!

Their menu

I was very pleased to see a lot of people buying full bars of some of the chocolate we tasted. We're definitely going to go back and try their Flight of Milk and Cookies, and some frozen hot chocolate!

Yummmm