On paper, the Chocolate and Liquor tasting class sounds like it would be great! Chocolate – good. Liquor – very good. Theoretically they should be good together. Then again, theoretically, fruitcake should be good, also. Maybe we weren’t the right kind of person for this class?
We attended this class onboard the Disney Fantasy. The class itself was held in their champagne lounge, unfortunately named Ooh-La-La. We hate this name. We hate saying this name. Please don’t make us say Ooh-La-La again. Also the seats were built for people about half our size. Luckily we were at the back and next to a couch. That’s the advantage of walking in last. Cruising pro tip.
It started off promising!
Well well, look at this spread! Wines, chocolates, and some kind of whiskey. This has potential. At this point, we’re excited and totally optimistic! The class began and we started to explore the tasty combinations of chocolate and liquors. Well, one liquor. Is wine a liquor? No, wine is wine. Okay there was one liquor, so it’s not technically false advertising. What was I talking about again? Sorry, I got distracted. Chocolate and liquor! wine!
Rosé all day!
First combination was rosé champagne and white/milk chocolate. From attending the Champagne tasting last year on the Disney Wish, we learned that rosé champagne is more fruity than regular champagne, but because of the process to make it, it’s also more expensive. For this pairing, the champagne was Taittinger Rosé.
To start, we tried the champagne first with the chocolate, and wow is that white/milk chocolate good! Then we tried the champagne after, and it felt like we were trying to wash the chocolate off our pallette. You know what, let’s forget about the champagne and just have more of that white/milk chocolate, please. Which bar can I order that in? Bartender, another round of that!
How about red wine?
Alrighty, let’s try wine and chocolate instead. Here we have a Californian Malbec from the John Lasseter vineyard, combined with three chocolates that I’m told are a little pricey. Being one who enjoys Hershey chocolate and doesn’t understand the hype around Cadbury, I’m sure we’re the ideal people to taste this luxury!
We tried red wine with white chocolate, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate. We sipped and nibbled. Swirled and savored. Our instincts were correct: we couldn’t tell a difference or taste a difference. At this point, we’re questioning why we took this class to begin with. Maybe the next one is better.
Cheese is not chocolate!
Perhaps red wine was a bust. Let’s try a dessert wine, instead! We like dessert wines. For this pairing, we are trying Quinta Do Noval 10 Year Tawny Port. To pair with this lovely dessert wine, we have a piece of parmesan reggiano. Wait, what? This is chocolate and liquor, not cheese and liquor!
Heck, let’s try it anyway. The idea is the saltiness of the parmesan will balance out the sweetness of the dessert wine. At least, that’s what the intention was. To us, we were wondering why we’re eating cheese with a dessert wine. Cheese is not dessert. For this pairing, we experience 2 regrets: the first one was trying it. The second was not finding out what brand that dessert wine was. It’s rare we find a wine we like, so when we do, we must find out what it is!
Here comes trouble…
Oh boy, this has potential to go south. For our last chocolate and liquor pairing, how about we combine melted chocolate with our good friend Scotch Whisky! For this pairing, we are trying Glenmorangie Signet Single Malt Scotch. This stuff is over $200 a bottle! Naturally, we were going to get our money’s worth from the class.
Now here’s where we were genuinely confused. We tried both samples seperately, and yes, they’re both great. Then we tried the melted chocolate first followed by some of the whisky and yes, the chocolate did in fact take the bite out of the whisky.
But if you’re pre-gaming your whisky to take the bite out, why drink whisky at all? We don’t understand why someone would combine these two. Come to think of it, you could do this pairing with rum, tequila, and maybe even that Cognac tasting we attended and didn’t like. What we’re really really saying is: don’t try this at a pub in Scotland and expect the locals to react kindly. I mean, we can’t say for certain, but that’s our guess.
No sir, I don’t like it.
At the end of the tasting class, and after finishing all of our samples, we walked away disappointed. Were we the wrong people for this class? Was our pallette not refined enough? We like chocolate. We like liquor. However, once we started combining the two, it became obvious that these pairings were not for us. We have the chocolate camp over here, and the wine/liquor camp over there. In our little world, we’re going to keep these two camps seperate and enjoy them both indovidually.
Maybe your experience will be different. Try it and let us know!
Disney Rover 