It’s funny when you talk about growing up, the memories that are evoked by chocolate. For many people, it’s memories of parents and grownups eating and enjoying liqueur filled chocolates and bon bons. I can still remember the box with all the individually wrapped mini bottles in various brightly coloured foils (and I still wonder whose job it was to get all the writing on the foil lined up perfectly with the bottle!).
Actually, the one chocolate that almost turned me off chocolate entirely was my father’s favourite. Cherry liqueur bon bons that remind him of growing up in Europe still remind me of the worst tasting medicine you could possibly find!
This chocolate cocktail came about after an afternoon at my local bar Mr Wilkinson in Brunswick, tossing around ideas with my friends Jack and Kitty, who run the bar. As they will attest, this cocktail combines two of my favourite things, chocolate and rum. In my opinion, these two ingredients are always the perfect partnership. Whether as a rum and raisin chocolate bar, or a rum filled bon bon, it’s a combination that never seems to date.
So alongside these two signature ingredients, the addition of the Cointreau provides a lovely balance and freshness to the mix. What is really wonderful here though, is that we are using real chocolate, so you get the honest depth and richness of quality chocolate in your cocktail, and not the harshness of imitation chocolate liquor.