457. Beyond the Barrel: Tasting with Delysia Chocolatier

Oh friends, and welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road podcast. I'm your host, Jim Shannon, and I'm your host, Todd Ritter.

We've got a great show for you today. So grab your favorite pour and join us.

Hey roadies, it's Diane Strong with Bourbon on the Banks Festival. We've got another amazing event coming your way this year. Be sure to join us at the half and I'll tell you a little bit more about the event taking place October 4th, 2025.

Todd and I are proud to have Smokies Lifestyle Cigars as a sponsor of this episode and as the official cigar of the Bourbon Road podcast. Our hosts and listeners alike enjoy the ultimate experience of premium cigars. Smokies Lifestyle Cigars are where flavor and craftsmanship meet. Find out more during the halftime break and at SmokiesLifestyleCigar.com. The Surgeon General warns that cigar smoking can cause lung cancer and heart disease and is not a safe alternative to cigarettes. All right, long time listeners and roadies. Welcome again to another episode of the Bourbon Road podcast. I'm your host, Jim Shannon. Todd's with us tonight. We have a very, very special show for you. We are actually going to eat today. I mean, Todd, we normally were just drinking, but today we're going to get to eat a little bit. Yeah.

And I'm curious, like when our listeners heard you say that, they're probably thinking, oh, barbecue or something, you know, beefy, but no, we're going to go to the sweeter side of things with Nicole Patel from Delicia Chocolatier. Nicole, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

It is great to have you on the show. And it's also great. I think you're our first chocolatier on the Bourbon Road podcast.

It's awesome.

Love to be the first. We're about 450 episodes in now, but we have yet to have a chocolatier on. How dare us miss this wonderful opportunity?

It is.

But the idea tonight is Todd and I have sort of put together a few of our choice whiskies that we'd like to bring for the tasting. And in this particular situation, she didn't have any advanced knowledge of what we're gonna pick. But in any case, Todd has different whiskies than I have. I have different ones than he has. And we're gonna kind of work our way through the show today. We're going to learn all about the making of chocolates and how to pair them with bourbons and just have a wonderful time. What do you think, Todd?

What's first on the list? I had kind of an early preview of these. We were supposed to kind of meet up a little earlier about a month ago, but it just didn't happen. So they were like, well, we're going to send you fresh chocolate. So I was like, well, what should I do with the others? And they're like, just eat them. So myself, the kids and the wife got to enjoy those one evening. And yeah, I'm really I mean, the flavors come in from this chocolate are amazing. So I can't wait to see how they work with some of the bottles we've chosen tonight.

So Nicole, we kind of like to get to that first pour pretty quick, but tonight it's really about getting to that first chocolate pretty quick. So I'm going to tell you. what I'm drinking in my first class and let you help me choose a chocolate. And Todd, if you'll do the same. And then while we're going through that first one, we'll get into a little bit of your story and how things got started with Delicia.

Sounds great. I might need a little help with the tasting notes though.

Not a problem. So I am, my first pour is a Blanton single barrel. And a Blanton single barrel is going to be a little bit more like your traditional baking spice cabinet. It's going to be caramel heavy, but it's going to have a lot of those traditional baking spices in it. It's going to have an oaky back into it, but it's more of a lighter whiskey. The proof is down in the 90% range or 90 proof range. So it's going to be a little bit more of a It's not going to be overwhelming in power. Not a lot of alcohol. Okay.

And Todd, what are, what are you drinking?

I'm going to go with, uh, old Fitzgerald. It's a weeder, weeded bourbon. So it's a seven year, um, think light honey note. It's got kind of a bit of a honey flavor to us. We actually just tried it the other day. Um, a little bit of cherry honey drizzle bread kind of thing.

Okay. Oh, you picked some tough ones for me. I think the beauty of pairing chocolate and bourbons and any spirits for that matter is simply, it's all about the experimentation. It's all about just trying things and seeing what you like because everybody's palates a little bit different. So for Jim, You know, there's a couple that come to mind in our history of chocolate tasting set that you have in front of you this evening. The Spiced Denise, which is the top right corner truffle in the box. It has kind of a peach mosaic type design on the top. That's a dark chocolate. It's a 72%.

Is this the right one to call?

Yes, that's correct.

Perfect. I'm ready to go.

So for Todd, yours has a little bit more cherry and fruit notes to it. So the Chipotle orange is probably the best truffle for your bourbon. This is going to be a little bit of experimentation because it's with a ruby chocolate. And this is the one that's in the bottom row, middle truffle. It's pink and has white swirls on it, kind of circle swirls on the top.

I've got it.

That's it. And so for yours, it's going to have bits of cranberries in it, a little bit of chipotle spice and get some smokiness and some pepper in it and a little bit of citrus on the finish. So I think that's going to be the best pairing in the box. Again, this is one that I probably would have selected something different if I had all 500 of our flavors to pick from. But out of this particular tasting set, I think this would be a fun one to kind of play with.

Five different flavors, wow.

Yes, 500 different flavors. And then we're always rotating in new ones for every season. Every time we create a new tasting set, every time I just come up with a new crazy idea to create. So we're constantly, constantly experimenting on flavors.

So Nicole, let me ask you, and we probably won't need to repeat this question as we go through, but I think at least for the first time through, kind of what's the process? I'm sitting here with a glass of whiskey in one hand and a chocolate in the other, and I have to say that the chocolates were kept in the fridge. They're quite chilled. But as soon as I start holding them, they do want to.

They want to melt a little bit. Yes. And that's because chocolate's melting point is at your body temperature. So it will melt pretty quickly. The process to tasting, you want to first try your bourbon. Then you want to taste your chocolate. and then you want to try them together. So we're doing that because we want you to understand how the whiskey, how the bourbon tastes by itself, how the chocolate tastes by itself individually, and then what happens when you pair them together. And when tasting the chocolate, we want to just take a bite. We want to let it sit on their tongue and just let it melt. You know, you're just referencing Jem, the melting point. We want to let that sit there and just slowly melt, kind of resist the urge to chew and Once you've had a chance to taste the chocolate, take another bite, let it sit there. As soon as it starts to melt, take a sip of your whiskey and see how it pairs together. And again, that beauty of pairing is what do you personally like? There's no right or wrong answers to this. I love that we're kind of blind taste testing here. We didn't have the list of bourbons beforehand to pair up with the chocolates, which is part of the fun and the experimentation. I think it's a great way to host a little a little get-together with friends to bring over your favorite bottles, grab some chocolates and see what everybody thinks about care as well.

That is amazing. That is so good. I did exactly as you said. I tasted the bourbon first, allowed it to coat my palate, and then I took a small bite of the chocolate, allowed it to melt in my tongue. It was really hard not to chew it. I didn't though. And then I took another bite of chocolate and a sip of bourbon together, let them mingle. And, uh, wow. My two favorite things in this world, I think are bourbon and chocolate. And they were in my mouth at the same time. That's really great. That was a great pairing, by the way. That was really nice. So thank you. Well together.

that little bit of the spice, there's a little bit of ginger in that chocolate, there's some bittersweet notes about a 72% cacao. And the nice thing about bourbon and chocolate is just that they are so similar in compounds that the warm vanilla is the tasting notes of like coconut or spices and they just pair beautifully together. I think they're just an inherent pairing that people don't think about necessarily or maybe overlook that just works so nicely together.

Todd, what about you?

What are you tasting today? So I had the one that had like the cranberry flavor and it worked really, really well. So put that in your notes. I guess so. So, little hydroproof weeder, weeded bourbon goes really well with that. Yeah. Yeah, the Chipotle cranberry, right?

Correct. Yes, the Chipotle orange and it's made with ruby chocolate. So, ruby chocolate is a unique form of chocolate. It's made from unfermented and unroasted cacao beans, so it carries forward that natural fruited notes. flavor profile of the cacao bean. And so you don't get a lot of the bittersweet or the fermented flavors of the chocolate. And so I thought, you know, when you mentioned cherry in the bourbon that you were tasting, that cranberry and then the fruity notes of the ruby chocolate, which we like to describe tastes like sweetened raspberry milk would be like perfect with that. With that little bit of smoky Chipotle, little bit of spice on the finish that kind of complements kind of the warmth of the bourbon and then that citrus note that, you know, just kind of carries through the tasting.

Fantastic. Wow. Thank you. So how in the world did you become a chocolatier? Did you decide early on in life or is it something you decided later on?

I actually have a master's in engineering. So I spent 15 years in corporate America as an industrial engineer and then worked my way up to being a director of quality. And I just happened to make truffles. I was eight months pregnant with my oldest. My husband came home from work and said, you know, it was around the holidays. He's like, I need gifts for my employees. And I had been watching a lot of cooking shows. And one of those cooking shows was about making chocolate. And I was like, Oh, this seems easy. I can do that. It was not chocolate is very, very particular. Like if the temperature is not just right, the humidity is too high. It just doesn't work. It became a challenge to really try to understand the properties of chocolate. I think it played to my engineering mindset, but gave me a creative avenue. We just started dabbling in having a chocolate business. We thought, oh, we'll do wedding favors once a month. maybe some pairings with local wineries every so often. But the food scene, we launched in 2008. The food scene here in Central Texas and Austin, where we're based just was exploding. And, you know, the business just kind of took off in ways we never imagined. And so that's how that's how we got started.

So an engineer becomes a chocolatier. I can see why, like you said, the sort of the challenge of the technology sort of grabbed a hold of you and you had to conquer it. You had to figure out how to do it. I've always heard it's tough to make chocolates that, you know, the temperature, that point at which it, I don't know what there's, I'm sure there's technical terms, but you reach a certain point where it's like the key temperature where you need to do things, right?

Correct. Yes. You've got a temper chocolate. You can't just melt it and think you're going to form it into a shape or dip pretzels or something in it and it's just going to work. It doesn't. Chocolate's got to be certain temperatures, raising and lowering it and raising it again so that it maintains its molecular structure and its sugar crystals so that it gives you that nice snap and that nice mouth feel when you bite into the chocolate. Otherwise, it just kind of tastes flat and it's kind of crumbling on the palate if it's not tempered properly. So it is very technical. We don't think about that when we break into our favorite chocolate box, but there is a lot of science behind those creations.

So you started your company in 2008 and like I said, you kind of started with the wine tastings, which wine tastings and chocolate, that's just been kind of a go-to forever. Exactly. So when did you kind of start bringing bourbon into the picture to kind of go with your chocolates and things?

So I love pairing chocolates with things, whether it's tea or it's coffee or it's bourbons, tequilas. Wine is where we got started. I very quickly started participating in wine festivals and we did quite a lot in central Texas and then on to the Aspen Food and Wine Festival every summer, which is kind of the cram to cram of food and wine events. That's where we met a lot of different bourbon and whiskey houses. And I started to learn that, you know, it doesn't matter what beverage you have, it works well. Like even chocolate can be paired with beer. It's harder, it's more challenging, but it can be done. And that's where a lot of the fun and excitement comes from. So, you know, I took that challenge of how do you work with chocolate and expanded that to now, how do you pair with everybody's favorite beverages that are out there and bourbon was definitely next in line after wine. I think people get the most excited about bourbons and whiskeys in pairing with chocolate. I wish to this day that there was an easy way to ship bourbons across the country so that we could do tons and tons of bourbon and chocolate pairings like we're doing tonight with you.

Well, you're in Austin and Austin's a great whiskey town. I mean, my goodness, you guys have some pretty amazing distilleries down there. Actually, that whole area of Texas is a pretty great spot.

It is. Yeah, it is for spirits, for wines and for food. We just, with the pandemic, that's where things really expanded and we started hosting virtual chocolate tastings for clients across the country. And so that's where that desire to be able to ship bourbon anywhere in the US would be. would be quite wonderful if we were able to do that.

Okay. So what do you say we move on to the next one?

Absolutely. Absolutely. What are we drinking next?

Okay. Well, uh, I will be drinking a well or 12 year. So this particular whiskey will be at 90 proof. So it's another whiskey that's not really high on the proof scale. but it has a lot more age to it. So it's going to have more barrel effects. We're going to have a little more oak. Okay. But it's also going to bring in those cherry notes that Todd was talking about earlier with his. I'm going to see those kind of in spades. This is a very concentrated flavor because of its age and it's actually a crowd favorite. This is one of those that, um, everybody wants to have on their bar. So if we can compare this with a bourbon, I'm sorry, with a chocolate, I think there'll be a lot of happy people out there. They can pull their 12 off the shelf, have one of your chocolates and just be in heaven.

Okay. And how about for you, Todd?

I've got the old granddad bottled and bond. It's a seven year. Um, and usually with Jim beam products, I get kind of like a peanut note. Um, it's had a little bit of like chocolate note with it as well. Um, yeah. So think like a little bit like a Snickers bar kind of thing.

Okay, so I have two flavors that come to mind and it could pair either with Jim's Weller 12 or with your Beam. The two flavors are Mexican Mole and a Honey Almond Nougat Truffle. So the Mexican Mole Truffle, and I'll kind of describe both to you and maybe you can figure out what you think would pair best with the whiskers you have. Yes, that is correct, Jim. That is the Mexican Mole. And then the almond honey has kind of a honeycomb design on the top. Yeah. So the Mexican Mole has eight peppers, six spice blends. It's a 72% bittersweet chocolate. I just think the description of both of your bourbons could pair really well with something with some spice and some warmth and some heat to it that kind of builds as the chocolate melts. I like complimentary pairings, but I also really like with bourbons ones that are contrasting. And so this Mexican mole would be great for that. If you want more of a complimentary pairing where it's similar flavors between the bourbon and the chocolate, the honey almonds would be great with that. That's milk chocolate, it's a sweeter, it's a creamier chocolate, has those hints of honey, a little bit of honeycomb, some nougat in there, and then roasted almonds. So something a little bit more on the traditional side that could pair well with either one of those bourbons.

All right. Well, I've chosen the Mexican mole and I know how to do this now.

So I'm going to proceed with the, uh, before you eat the Jim, the nose on that chocolate is amazing. Oh my goodness.

Yeah. It's got, you can smell the pepper in it.

Yep. So I actually can't eat chocolate. It gives me migraines. And so I develop all of our recipes by smelling. So I will smell all the ingredients. I will blend it with the chocolate that I pick, whether it's white milk, dark, ruby, gold. And then I will take a little spoonful of the ganache and I will smell that to see how the aromas are behaving. Cause that's how the flavors are going to unfold on your palate.

Wow. There's something very cynical about that though. You create all this wonderful product and you can't, I can't eat any of it now. Oh my goodness. That's like heartbreaking.

Oh wow. That is so good together. Thank you. And when you take, when you, when you actually get the bourbon in your mouth with the chocolate. the chocolate ignites. It just amps up really quick and the pepper just comes alive in it. It's an amazing thing. It really is. Wow.

Thank you.

Totally crazy.

Peppers and chocolate. are one of my favorite things to create. Each pepper behaves a little bit differently on the palette. So you get a little bit of warmth from the jalapeno, a little bit of the green pepper taste, then it builds into your ancho chilies and some of those smoky peppers. The habanero is kind of all around mouthfeel, the cayenne, the back of the throat. And so as you're tasting this with your bourbon and as the flavor profile of the bourbon is building, the flavor spice of the chocolate is building right along with it.

Wow. That is unreal. And the finish just goes on forever. It's just like, it coats the back of your mouth and it just stays there. Tremendous. Thank you. It's like, it doesn't taste like gasoline. So don't take this the wrong way, but it's like pouring gasoline on a fire. It just ignites. It just ignited.

I was like, wow. the tasting of pairing that lasts and lingers. That's, I think sometimes that's the best ones because you get to enjoy it a little bit longer. What are you thinking, Todd?

I actually went with the mole as well because I tried it earlier. I love it anyway on its own.

It's great.

But yeah, um, that spice at the after like, you know, I did the initial coating in the mouth of the bourbon and then the chocolate and then I added, you know, took another little sip and like this kind of let it mesh and like the spicy spiciness at the end is just like, it's just staying in my mouth. Like it's not going anywhere right now. It's just really nice.

And, you know, alcohol tends to accentuate spice, especially in chocolate. So I would say that if you're not a spice lover, you want things really, really spicy, like pairing an alcohol or bourbon with a chocolate with spicy notes would probably not be the way to go. Cause it's definitely going to be stronger on that flavor profile or ignite.

Do you like spices, Nicole? Do you like spicy foods?

I do. Being in Texas, we eat a lot of Mexican food. My husband is also Indian, so I cook a lot of Indian food as well. I don't like spice over the top where it burns your mouth so much that you can't taste anything for the next couple hours. I like spice in the sense of flavorful and complex. And you'll see that built into a lot of our chocolate flavors. But with that said, we do have a chocolate with ghost pepper and ghost pepper salt in it. We have a drinking chocolate that's ghost pepper based. And so that's one of those that's, you know, it just hits you. Yes.

Yeah, I will say that the, the, the amount of spice that's in that piece of chocolate is at a very respectable level. So if we've got listeners out there thinking, Oh no, I don't want that one because of the peppers. I think it'd be all right. I think you'll be okay. I don't think it's going to overpower you. You're not going to be on fire or anything like that. It's just enough to let you know the pepper is there and it kind of enhances the chocolate flavor. It's just that the. Weller 12 plus that just kind of amped up in my mouth a little bit and just became this wonderful pairing. It was really good. Thank you.

It's kind of an amped up spicy hot chocolate. There's like a couple of coffee shops around here that have those, you know, that's what it kind of reminded me of.

So are there like particular bourbons that are easier to work with or like, you know, like go-tos for you?

I mean, do you prefer to weeded bourbons to pair with when you do this or something like that?

There's no particular style of bourbon that I prefer. All bourbons or whiskeys pair really well with chocolate. They're just made for each other. I think that a lot of it goes down to in terms of picking the whiskey or the bourbon and picking the chocolate. Do I want sweet? Do I want more bitter and bolder flavors in terms of a dark chocolate? Or do I want really, really sweet with like a with a white chocolate? And that's kind of more where I focus. I haven't found a bourbon that doesn't pair with chocolate. And so it is the easiest place to start. I would say that this is the least intimidating way to start pairing a, you know, a drink with a food is start with bourbon and chocolate, because again, they are they're very, very easy to pair together. And there's no right or wrong to doing it. I do, however, like, you know, you're the ones that have, you know, in terms of scotches, ones that have more peat in them, you know, that adds a little bit of complexity to it. You know, bourbons arise, you know, are really nice because that adds a different kind of spin in a different note to some of the flavors and makes the pairings a little bit more complex. And so those are always fun to explore as well. So I wouldn't leave those out, you know, for your listeners, if they're lining up the repertoire of what they want to taste. I would definitely insert some of those more unique bourbons just to just to see how those change and how the pairing experience works with those.

Fantastic. So I think we're at a good place here for us to take a short break. And we'll continue nibbling on our chocolate and sipping on our bourbon as we go into the half here. Folks stick around. We'll be right back with Nicole Patel from Delicia Chocolatier and we'll have more bourbon and more chocolate pairings to come in the second half. So don't go away. We will be right back.

Hey, roadies, it's Diane Strong with Bourbon on the Banks Festival again. We have another amazing event this year, but we want you to come early because we've got a lot of events leading up to the festival. Starting on Thursday, we've got another mixology with master mixologist Heather Wibbles on the Bourbon Bell and O.H. Ingram. Leading into Friday, we have got Peggy No Stevens. She's back with another bourbon pairing and a lesson called The Stave is the Rage. It's going to be amazing. Limestone Heritage Distilling is going to be bringing in three single barrels. You're going to learn a lot. We've got the VIP coming back and this year we are celebrating women in bourbon. This year, Bourbon on the Banks Festival promises to be even better than ever. We've already got more than 70 distilleries that are going to be there. More than anything, I need to encourage you to get your tickets as soon as possible. They're selling fast. Some of them are already sold out. If you want to come this year, please get your tickets. We don't want to miss you on October 4th in Frankfort, Kentucky on the banks of the amazing Kentucky River.

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All right, welcome back listeners. We've been entertaining our sweet tooth, if you will, tonight with Nicole Patel from Delicia Chocolatier. It's been a really interesting experiment, like combining these delicious chocolates with some of the bourbons we've asked her to compare with. And well, I'm taking it into a next level and I've like thrown her some really wild ones this time, I think. So Jim, what did you think about that first half?

I loved it. I thought it was great. Like when I paired the first chocolate with the Blanton's, I just felt like all was great with the world. Everything was nice. It was a wonderful pairing. It was delicious. But man, when I hit the Willard 12 and the spicy mole chocolate, it was like pouring gasoline on a fire. Everything just like amplified immediately. The flavors were just times 10. It was wonderful. It was an amazing pairing that just Just lit me up. It was, it was great. Not, not in a spicy way, not like in a burn my palate way, but just in just immense flavor. It was so wonderful.

So you ready for us to throw these curve balls at you, Nicole?

I am. Tell me what you have.

Okay. I've gone off the board and I'm going to go with an apple brandy this time. It's from Lairds.

Okay. Cool. Love it. And what about you, Jim?

And I'm going to have a Michter's barrel strength bourbon. So this is going to be a little bit hotter, a little bit higher proof, I think around 107. This particular bourbon is going to be more concentrated in flavor. It's going to be more of a traditional kind of bourbon palette, but I would say a little bit more heavy on the darker fruits, maybe plums and raisins, darker caramels, just a really concentrated bourbon flavor.

Okay, so I think the best in the box to pair with both of those is our apple pie chocolate truffle. And this has the green paisley design on the top. This is in our history of chocolate collection. It's a milk chocolate, so creamier. has baking spices, so cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, the little piece of tart green apple in the center. And the beauty of this truffle is those baking spices are upfront, kind of get the cinnamon and the cloves, kind of that warmth that starts your palate. A little bit of the sweetness of the milk chocolate comes through, kind of as that's building and you take a sip of your whiskies, And your brandy, that's going to just open up the flavor of the tart apples, a little chewy bit in the center of the truffle. And it's going to finish with those warming spices, the ginger, allspice, and nutmeg, as that just kind of coats your palate.

Oh, wow. Like a chocolate coated apple turnover. Really wonderful.

Oh, it's a little buttery too. Yep. That's a nice creamy milk chocolate.

Like a scoop of chocolate ice cream in with like a little chocolate syrup on some like apple pie. So that's delicious.

Not your normal combo, but it works.

It works really well.

Right, right. And you don't typically think apple pie when you think of a chocolate truffle flavor, but it's getting us in the feeling for fall coming up here shortly.

So you've got this slew of flavors. Do you actually have a bourbon flavored chocolate, I'm sure, or like a rye flavored chocolate and things like that? Or is it, you know, part of your repertoire?

We do. So any place that we can incorporate a spirit of wine, a bourbon into a chocolate, we do. Sometimes I have to eliminate that as an ingredient, because they can't all be alcohol infused. But in particular, we have a spirits collection that is rum, bourbon, and scotch blended into a rich dark chocolate. So you get three of each of those truffle flavors. The nice thing about when you add spirits, especially whiskeys and bourbons to chocolate, it makes it very velvety. It almost gives it a sheen or a shine to the chocolate, and it has a nice creaminess on the palate. So it has a nice kind of nice mouthfeel to it as well that compliments the whiskeys very nicely.

Oh, what a great pairing here. I'm so surprised. Now, I would have thought just, you know, going into this that the Mickers Barrel Strength bourbon would have overpowered the chocolate just a little bit. But that chewy little bit of apple just shine through and it does have this little bit of like a apple turnover flavor to it. Maybe a little bit of, is there cinnamon in this, did you say?

There is cinnamon. Cinnamon and cloves is probably the strongest spices that you're tasting there. Yeah. And the, the whiskey it's going to definitely open that up, bring that out, kind of accentuate that flavor.

Absolutely. Cause this is kind of a rye bourbon and it just, it kind of pairs well with those as particularly the clove, I think. And, uh, elevates it quite a bit. So this is a nice pairing. I'm wondering though, if they wouldn't just all work, you know, would they, would they just all taste good?

I think they would. But at the same time, I think there's some, we're just going to be like, wow. I think if we took one whiskey or one bourbon and paired it, that same bourbon with all nine flavors in our history of chocolate, all of them would work. But I think there'd be. two or three that you'd be like, wow, that's amazing. Like that's the perfect pairing to go with that, you know, with, with that select bourbon.

So Nicole, could you describe for the folks kind of what we have in front of us? I guess, you know, we've got nine different samples and I'm not sure you called them truffles, I believe.

Correct. Yes. So we are known for making handmade chocolate truffles. Most of our chocolate truffles come in a nine piece assortment. Those assortments either feature three flavors and three truffles of each flavor, because we want you to share those with family and friends. Or in particular, this history of chocolate tasting set that we have. This is nine different flavors in the box and it takes you through the history of chocolate, but it is also a beautiful box to pair with your favorite bourbons. And now you might be wondering what is a chocolate truffle. So a chocolate truffle is a thin chocolate outer shell. that is wrapped around a ganache center. And that ganache center is a blend of chocolate and cream and the other spices and fruits and natural ingredients that we add to that to accentuate that base chocolate flavor.

I mean, it's, it's like a little, when you open it up, it's like a little kaleidoscope of, I don't know, art, if you will, those nice little patterns to describe what it is and things like that. And it's almost too pretty to eat, but I'm fighting through it.

I hear that a lot. And we encourage people to enjoy indulge. That's the whole, the whole reason that we spend about seven to 10 days making each truffle. in our kitchen, so it's definitely a labor of love and we can help you find where to get more.

Speaking of labor of love, I noticed that some of these chocolates, some of these truffles have a surprise inside and some of them don't. For the ones that do have a surprise inside, does that raise the difficulty level in creating them just a little bit?

It does it adds about another day or two to the process because we're placing in the center of each truffle cavity. in the center of each shell, we're placing by hand those dry fruits or the dry nuts. One of the truffles we tasted earlier was the almonds and the nougat. We're placing that by hand into the center of each of these cavities before we put that creamy ganache inside of it. So yes, that does add a little bit of complexity to it, not only to the hand making of the truffle, but more importantly, and the whole reason why we do it, to the flavor profile and the tasting component of the chocolate.

Okay. So that sort of brings us to the anatomy of a truffle. So a truffle is, and this is from a person that doesn't know anything about chocolates, but a truffle is a more hard chocolate outer shell with a softer inner filling, plus optional items that can be placed inside as well.

Correct. And we make ours in the traditional Parisian style fashion. So no additives, no preservatives. We just want you to be able to really indulge in chocolates that are close to the purest form as possible.

So when folks get on your website to order their own, is there kind of like, I'm sure you guys have different collections. Like you were saying, you have kind of a rum, bourbon, scotch collection. Um, and then. So what can, what can folks expect when they get on your website? If they wanted to like, can they just kind of pick nine of their own or what's, yeah, what's the kind of, what can they expect?

So we have, yeah, we have curated each of the assortments that we sell on our website and that's a delicia.com. Um, we have curated those to match with either a particular theme or an experience that you want to have. For example, we have that spirits collection that we were talking about, you know, that's curated to a theme, our history of chocolate, or we have a taste of the South collection that's curated to a particular story we want to tell. And so, you know, we've built these boxes to enhance the tasting experience of the consumer.

All right, Todd, what do you say? I'm ready to move on to another chocolate and another bourbon. What do you think? Well, maybe bourbon for you. I don't know.

You're moving to a bourbon, but I'm, you know, me and the curb balls, I'm going to throw her a curb ball again one more time. She'll probably never speak to us again after this.

What is it, Todd? What are you drinking?

So, I have Ardbeck Corey Vrecken. It's a very peaty scotch. I heard you mentioned something about that before in the first half and I thought, Hey, I happen to have a really peaty scotch. So let's see what she can do with it.

All right. Perfect. So I think the best pairing out of this particular box is our smoked cacao. And that's in the top left corner of the box. It has kind of the silvery speckled design on the top. It is a 85% bittersweet chocolate. It has been infused with salts that we've smoked in a barbecue pit so it gets a little bit of mesquite a little bit smokiness to it and then homemade caramel that we've blended to it so you've got really bitter notes. little hints of sweetness. Just think of like, just strings of little sweetness from caramel. And then this smoke saltiness to it. And I think that should pair beautiful.

Excited.

your peated whiskey.

All right. So while you're gathering your things there, Todd, I'm going to be drinking an Angel's Envy Seller Collection. And this is a bourbon from Angel's Envy, but this one's actually finished in tawny port barrels instead of ruby port barrels. And this is going to be at 111 proof. So it's going to be a higher on the proof scale. And the tawny port is going to bring a little bit more of the more savory, meaty, darker grape notes to the whiskey. So it's going to be a little bit more of a, yeah, like a, like a rich, savory grape infused bourbon kind of, yeah.

Okay. This one's a little more challenging. I think you could pair with the smoked cacao that Todd is going to enjoy. I think that would be great with it. It's not going to be an over top complex. It's just going to add just hints of salt. That's going to enhance the pairing to it. I think if you wanted to go with something to kind of maybe compliment and soften things a little bit while playing off some of those dried figs and raisins and plum notes, the white peach balsamic truffle. This is the one with the white and blue checks on the top. It is sweeter, so it is going to be a contrast in terms of sweetness. But I think the dried peaches in the center and a little bit of acidity from the white balsamic vinegar will be very nice against that and compliment those savory notes of your angel's envy.

Okay, perfect. So that's the white chocolate with the blue check marks on top.

That is correct.

Perfect.

I've got it. I'm ready to go. Todd, are you ready to go? I am. I do have another question. So you're in Austin and one of my favorite Texas distilleries is still Austin. Have you been able to collaborate with them at all or anything with some chocolate stuff?

I'm very familiar with them and we love their whiskeys and their bourbons. I have unfortunately not been able to collaborate with them as of yet.

That should happen though. We should make that happen. Yes.

One of my favorite things about this job is just being able to work with other small businesses and share, share the love.

Right. So if folks wanted to do, I mean, not necessarily with your chocolates, but just wanted to put a chocolate bourbon tasting together for friends, is there any like, kind of like key things they should keep in mind when doing something like that?

What I would recommend is make sure you have a variety of chocolate flavors. Have some white chocolate based flavors, some milk chocolate, some dark chocolate because each base chocolate performs a little bit differently with your bourbons. Then you want to have some that have some fruity notes, some with some nut notes, some sweet, some savory so that you kind of cover the gamut of flavor profiles. I like to almost build a grid and say, okay, I've got the florals, I've got the spice, I've got the nuts, I've got the sweet. And then just experiment. I mean, have fun with it. You don't have to be serious. I tell people this all the time when we're doing tastings, just pick your favorite bourbons pick chocolates and just start trying, invite a bunch of friends over. That's the most important part and just have fun. And that's what makes this so enticing.

All right, Todd, I'm dying to hear your, your, uh, this might be my favorite.

Yeah. This is amazing. Yep. It's, uh, It's crazy. Uh, I can't even, yeah, I don't know. It's like elevated the smoke a little bit. It's kind of turned down that you, you always say you get like that iodine kind of thing.

Right.

Uh, but oh man, this is, yeah, I'm going back for another bite and another sip. This is fantastic.

I was going to say Todd, this is the most simplistic flavor. The smoked cacao is the simplest flavor profile in the entire history of chocolate tasting set. And that's, That's amazing that this is your favorite pairing. It can show that even the most simplistic of flavors with a unique bourbon or unique whiskey can just make amazing things happen when paired together.

I've been told I was a simple man, so it makes sense.

That's awesome.

Didn't Leonard Skinner sing a song about you, simple man?

They were singing that before I was born, I think, or maybe when I was younger.

Maybe they had me in mind. The white chocolate balsamic, balsamic, I'm sorry. It goes extremely well with the angels in me. That was a spot on pairing. It's really good. And, uh, yeah, I could sit, I could sit and nibble on this chocolate and drink this whiskey for just relax. It'd be a great, yeah, just a nice back porch, just all by myself looking off into the, into the pasture, because I got a pasture in my backyard, just nibbling on that chocolate and sipping on this Angel's Emmy. What a great, what a great thing.

Yeah. And I'll say this, like I said, I tried them without bourbon and these chocolates are exquisite on their own too.

Don't... You both are very kind. Thank you.

Yes. Yeah, I think I would like to do it with coffee as well. I think that would be, because I'm a big coffee fan, and I just think that would be a great thing as well.

Coffee and chocolates are wonderful together. They both are made or grown in the bean belt. So they have some of the same chemical properties, same terroir, how it affects their flavor profile. So, you know, it's just a beautiful pairing. And what happens with coffee is coffee elevates the richness and the decadence in your chocolate. And so just makes everything taste that much more indulgent. So yes, that pairs very, very well together as, as well. Spike your coffee with some bourbon and then add it to chocolate. Like that would be perfect.

There you go. There you go. Can you actually dissolve chocolate? You can't dissolve chocolate and bourbon. They don't, they're not miscible. They don't actually go together. I didn't think so. But you can, but you can melt your chocolate and coffee and then add bourbon, right?

Correct, yes.

Okay, so that's the right order. Put it in your coffee, get it to melt, and then add a little bit of bourbon to it. That would be great. Well, so much fun. Nicole, we had a great time tonight.

Well, thank you. I had fun as well. Again, this is my favorite way to pair chocolate is with bourbon, so it can't go wrong.

I might just need a little box of all these, uh, the smoke cacao. That's so good.

Thank you.

You've got all those Peeta Scotches you need to try now with chocolate.

So, right, right.

So what about tequila? You got anything that would work with tequila, Nicole? Just out of curiosity.

We've done a lot of different tequila pairing events with food and wine and food events. We do a lot of Margarita inspired truffle flavors. So that's one of those seasonal flavors. Um, you know, the truffles that I create the kind of roll in and out of our repertoire, um, a couple of times a year, especially around national Margarita day, which I think is in February. So again, I haven't met, I haven't met a spirit that doesn't work well with chocolate yet.

You accept the challenge then, huh?

I do. Yes. If you ever want to talk tequila and do a tasting, I'm open.

I can think maybe a missed cow with that, with that smoke cow would be good. I don't know.

That would be very lovely together. Smoking chocolate is amazing.

Well, Nicole, it's been amazing. It's been so much fun. Todd and I are, we're on top of the world right now. We've had, uh, I guess we have to go back to normal lives again, where we just eat regular food and have a poor bourbon instead of just decadent chocolates all the time. I still have some left, so I can spoil myself a few nights.

I've got to share the rest with my wife.

Well, thank you for having me on the podcast. I love it. You're very welcome.

We would like to give you a chance to call to tell everybody where they can find you guys on the internet, on social media, including any events you might be attending coming up, or they might be able to meet you in person. Love to hear about it.

Of course. So, Delicia Chocolatier is based in Austin, Texas. We do have a storefront, so if you are local or visiting Austin, you can come in and see us in Northwest Austin. You can find us at delicia.com, and that's D-E-L-Y-S-I-A dot com. We ship anywhere in the U.S. as well as into Canada. And then we are on Instagram at delicia underscore choc.

I'm getting on Instagram right now.

Well, again, great to have you on, Nicole. So much fun. Such a great variety show for our listeners. They're going to love this. They're going to eat it up. I hope you get all kinds of orders from them and they're preparing chocolates all year long, particularly at the holidays. So think about your family and friends that need wonderful chocolates to pair with their bourbons on the holidays, folks. But we'll invite you back again. Make sure you let us know when you've got some great new things coming out and we'll have you back. It would always be fun. If you're ever in our area of the country, we'd love to have you sit down and have a pour with us sometime, Nicole.

I would love that. And the same if you're ever in Austin, come see us. Do tasting in person.

That'd be great. Sounds great. All right. Well, you can find the Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, threads. Yeah, we do them all. But every week, Todd and I will get together. We'll do an episode. We'll have some friends on. We'll have wonderful industry people on, like Nicole. You know, we'll just have a great time. We're always drinking whiskey. We're always having a good time. And we're always trying to let you know know, what should be on your bar? And in this case, what should be in your fridge? These chocolates for sure. No doubt. We hope you listen to us every single week. The best way not to miss a show is to scroll to the top of that app you're on, hit that subscribe button. That way you'll never miss a show. Todd and I are always putting them out. We'd always like to be a part of your day. If you're wearing headphones, we'd love to be on those headphones while you're cutting grass or driving to that next sales call. We'd love to be a part of your day in all that you do. But until the next time, we'll see you down. The Bourbon Room.

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