The great chocolate vodka experiment

I’ve never been one for novelty vodkas. You can keep your spicy vodkas or your citrus vodkas – I’m not really interested. I like my vodka like I like my men – in a glass. Er, I mean, smooth, Polish and intoxicating.

I have been aware of the existence of chocolate vodka for some time now – having a blog called ?chocolate and vodka? does tend to do that to you – but I’ve never tried any. I’ve heard that chocolate beer is vile and I have been happy to assume that its vodka counterpart would be a drink that desecrated both the holy purity of vodka and the holy deliciousness of chocolate.

Every now and again, I get possessed by some devilish curiosity which makes me consider questions which should never, ever be considered. Particularly when food and/or drink is involved. Semolina, for example, does not work in shortbread unless you specifically want to break your guests? teeth.

I cannot for the life of me logically explain why yesterday I decided that it was time to carry out the Great Chocolate Vodka Experiment, but the need came over me, and so it was done. One chunk of Green & Black’s 70% Organic Dark Chocolate in one small (waste not) tipple of Wodka Wyborowa Pure Rye Grain Triple Distilled Imported From Poland 40% Volume.

So, the question was, would the 70% and the 40% add up to 110%, or the mathematically difficult -30%?

I sealed the top of the glass with cling to ensure no contaminants and allowed the chocolate to infuse the vodka for a little over 24 hours. Every now and again I gave it a little shake just to facilitate mixing.

As you can see, although the chocolate did not completely dissolve, it did actually infuse quite nicely.

I then extracted the chocolate piece, which crumbled slightly in the ice tongs as I removed it. Whilst writing this, a layer of sediment has settled out in the vodka, leaving a rather pretty chestnut layer atop.

On to the final test.

The vodka does actually smell rather attractively chocolatey, somewhat like the original chocolate. So yes, a very nice aroma.

I shall now taste the vodka.

The vodka seems a bit thicker than it was previously, but it doesn’t taste hugely of chocolate. The taste is more of cocoa powder – that stuff that you use to make chocolate cakes which doesn’t actually itself taste of chocolate and makes a rotten drink. It’s not an unholy, vile taste, but I’m glad I didn’t waste too much Wyborowa on it.

Having now finished off all but the worst of the sediment, I must admit that I wouldn’t want to drink more than a snifter of this. In fact, I wouldn’t really want to drink it ever again. It’s insipid and uninspiring.

I shall now taste the remains of chocolate. It doesn’t smell hugely of vodka, so I hold out a few hopes that it might still be edible.

Ooh, actually, that’s much better. I’d say that the vodka has permeated about half of the radius of the chunk, leaving an untouched chocolatey core in the middle. There’s quite a hit of vodka in the soggy, sodden layer which gives you that nice burn going down. It’s a little more bitter than it originally was and leaves a peculiar aftertaste, so again, not something I’d want to make a habit of eating. I probably should have taken a photo of it, but I’ve eaten it now, so you’ll have to live without.

Overall: Definitely not a 110%, and not as bad as a -30%, so I’ll give it the only other option of 30% success.

My verdict: Chocolate and vodka should be consumed consecutively, not together. There is a high probability that real chocolate vodka is vile.