Olive and Sinclair Mexican Style Cinnamon Chili

2.75oz bar

Ingredients: Cocoa beans (Ghana), sugar, cocoa butter, organic Ceylon cinnamon, salt, cayenne pepper

I really enjoyed Olive and Sinclair's salt and pepper bar, so when I returned an item at a local chocolate shop, I exchanged it for Olive and Sinclair's Mexican chocolate bar.

Corporate Info: One appealing feature of Olive and Sinclair's chocolate is that the young company is small and American—in Nashville, to be specific. They make several plain and flavored bars using stone-ground beans and brown sugar, both of which are relatively uncommon (though not unheard of) in the chocolate game. I can't find anything on the bars or website about their bean sourcing and so on, but they do seem to be making an effort with certain organic ingredients (see ingredients for this bar), some well-intended environmental initiatives, and possibly a foray into fair trade (there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it mention in this video). All in all, at this time Olive and Sinclair is a company I'm happy to support.

Appearance: Unlike the Salt & Pepper bar, the Mexican Style has the spices mixed in, so there's no photo of the speckled back of this bar. Again it's thin, flat, and sharply molded, and the color is glossy and vivid.

Smell: Fruity, something juicy like cherry or currant. Aside: I've called a lot of chocolate “fruity” lately, which either means I've eaten a lot of fruity chocolate or I have a limited olfactory palate. Probably both, though I'm working on the latter. Anyway, whether this bar is “fruity” or not, the smell is pretty pure, not roasty or sour or sweet or in-your-face, just a fresh, slightly caramelized scent.

Taste: Whereas some “Mexican” chocolate can be one- or two-note, in this bar the chocolate, cinnamon, cayenne, and salt merge with surprising complexity. It doesn't just taste like cinnamon or overwhelming spiciness but instead is infused with warmth and flavor; I wouldn't have been surprised to have seen other spices listed in the ingredients. The chocolate itself is subtly fruity with an additional, interesting sweetness, like toasted marshmallows—perhaps from the brown sugar. Texture also helps, as stone-ground beans give the chocolate a fine, uniform grittiness that makes mouthfeel and chew intriguing but not to the point of being distractingly annoying.

Conclusion: Olive and Sinclair Mexican Style Chocolate Cinnamon Chili is balanced and complex, just excellent stuff. 

Olive and Sinclair Salt & Pepper

2.75oz bar

Ingredients: Cacao beans, brown sugar, cocoa bitter, kosher salt, black peppercorns

I spotted Olive and Sinclair's distinctive wrappers at a specialty chocolate shop, where the clerk said the bars had only just arrived. The Nashville-based company doesn't even have a fully functioning website as of this writing, but its enthusiastic blog details the entire process of setting up production, from receiving the bean roaster to choosing molds to getting the first bars out the door. The blog currently lists two plain bars in 67% and 75% cacao, three year-round flavored bars, one seasonal bar, and nibs. My local store carried three of the bars including Salt & Pepper, which according to the blog is in the 67% cacao base.

So how's the new chocolate on the block? The look of the bars is very clean, a vivid brown and with sharp edges and detailing on the front and an even sprinkling of salt and medium-ground black pepper on the back. Of course it smells like salt, pepper, and chocolate, with the salt and pepper somewhat restrained and the chocolate...hard to distinguish: It all blends into one sweet-savory aroma, which is probably a sign of a good pairing. The rectangles snap apart easily—this is a firm, crunchy chocolate.

Because of the slightly dusty salt and pepper I start by biting into the rectangles flavor-side-up, and I find I detect a gentle pepper scent, nothing close to sneeze-inducing. When I try biting into them flavor-side-down instead, the scent is eliminated but the salt immediately begins to melt on my tongue and the pepper provides heat instead of perfume. Once I begin chewing the flavor changes again: The salt becomes a background salinity and the pepper a touch of earthiness, a combination that evokes seawater.

If I weren't paying such close attention, I'd probably swallow before thinking about the experience, and I'd come out with “That was kind of neat. Not a strong pepper flavor, a little salty, tasty chocolate but that's really not the point here...heh, cool.” And that would be that. As it is, I am reflecting during each step of the process of savoring each bite, and it's rather more complicated. Thus, I pronouce:

Conclusion: Olive and Sinclair's Salt & Pepper bar is subtle, meant for measured bites and slow appreciation—an interesting experiment in learning to pay attention to how things taste. 

[Apologies for the dark photo of the back of the bar. It's actually the same color as the front, but my bare-bones free photo organizing software doesn't enable me to lighten photos.]