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Book a self drive package by June 30th!"What flavors do you like?" Gwen, the chocolatier, asks me. For a moment, I'm dumb-struck. It is a question I've never been asked, with regards to chocolate. I'm a purist - I like chocolate flavor. Period. That is why I've entered his shop.
Gwen is no mundane person. He is full of life and charisma and charm. Immediately, with one look, he wants to know what I'm doing in his shop scribbling notes. There's no keeping secrets here, and my mission to find the best chocolate in Ireland makes him all the more buoyant to share his passion for chocolate with me. This man has the energy of ten men, and he tastes me, tours me, and has me spinning, in between running a busy shop, unloading a delivery of fresh supplies, and chatting with his business partner Claire.
"I like dark chocolate," I decide. Well, if I had to choose between one or the other...
"No!" he's unsatisfied with my answer. "Dark is not a flavor, it is a color. Come now," he tries again, purring in his Parisian accent, "what kind of flavors do you like? Do you like mint, lavender, cherry...what flavor?"
"Ah... caramel?" I try. That satisfies him, and he disappears to the back kitchen, reemerging with a tiny tray, on which sits a chocolate. I taste it. It's not exactly liquid caramel, more of a praline texture, must be French caramel. But it is divine, whatever it is. I'm won.
"Would you like to see the back?" Oh yeah ! That is where all the action of chocolate concocting takes place. The secret rituals of melting and coating and tasting. It is a pure delight to tour - Gwen uncovers bins of freshly crushed almonds for me to smell. I marvel at the three machines used to create ganache and the intricate molds for painting the white chocolate shells. From the looks of it, I quickly deduce just how arduous, intensive, and exacting the process of making chocolate is. This is for no light-weight dabbler. This is for the true lover, aficionado - you must love chocolate to be a master chocolatier.
"Do you like peanut butter?" Gwen asks. "You're American, you'll like this." And his assumption is correct -- the chocolate covered, peanut bonbon is hours old and melt away delicious.
Each bonbon is individually hand-dipped in chocolate in a temperature-controlled setting. The chocolate houses a center made of fresh ingredients - from this center explodes the flavor Gwen is talking about. It can be of the classic or seasonal sort. They do 35 varieties of flavors, plus some seasonal herb and flower flavors.
To top it off, they also bake fresh brownies, cookies, and handmade cakes for special occasions, in chocolate mousse or butter cream.
Gwen spends his life here, talking, eating, and creating. The shop has been open just one and one half years, and already it's generated quite a buzz - achieving The Best of Ireland 2007 award by The Bridgestone. The recognition is due as much to the spectacular chocolates as it is to Gwen's personality. He lives for the senses, loving those of taste and smell and building his business around them. He loves the flavor and doesn't care about the time.
Gwen encourages me to "taste the chocolate as if you are tasting wine. The flavor comes with time." The flavors I like in Gwen's shop are 1) Marrakech - a ganache infused with fresh, summertime mint and 2) Lavender - a ganache infused with fresh lavender. These flavors were fabulous. So good that I am too impatient to savor them and chomp right in. I am happy to keep tasting the chocolates, though, to better train myself to linger over their flavors.
Gwen's Chocolates, Main Street, Schull, West Cork, Ireland. Tel: +353 (0)28 27853. Web: www.gwenschocolates.com.