Easter Weekend is now less than three weeks away, and the UK is (hopefully) now starting to emerge from what seems like a VERY long third lockdown.
So we’d like to invite you to join us in celebrating with two great new tastings with firstly WINE and secondly GIN (and tiramisu) (see below for more details).
We are also excited to have a couple of other new Easter ideas to tell you about. Karen and Isabel of Dormouse in Manchester have two intriguing new Easter Bars: Egg on Toast and Pancake (see below and here). We’ve added these to our Easter Gift line up, including other great Easter ideas from Chocolarder, Pump Street and our own “Make your own Easter Egg Kit” with Zoom demonstration. (See here and below for more details).
Virtual win tasting with Corney & Barrow
We are delighted to be running a Fine Wine and Craft Chocolate Tasting with Rebecca Palmer, Wine Buyer at Corney & Barrow one of the world’s oldest Wine Merchants and holder of two Royal Warrants. There are two sessions; one on Thursday 25th March and then another on Thursday 8th April, both at 8.00 pm (UK time). (See here and below).
We are pairing two contrasting South American red wines with three different dark chocolates (a Chilean Cabernet Franc, Licanten, and an Argentinian Malbec, Ruca). We will also match Corney and Barrow’s own-label Bourgogne Blanc from François Carillon with a dark milk chocolate from Standout using Idukki beans from India. You might not have tried white wine with chocolate but trust us; we’ll show you how it can work.
And, as ever, we’ll encourage as much audience participation as possible with quizzes, online tasting notes and more via menti.com as we talk about the science, art and fun to be had whilst pairing fine wines and chocolate.
The tasting kit includes three full size bottles of wine and four craft chocolates; so it should set you up very well for the run up to Easter.
Gin & Tiramisu; With Steve Tapril and Simon Rimmer
We’re also really looking forward to running a craft chocolate and speciality gin tasting on Thursday 1st April, from 7.30pm (GMT), over Zoom, with Steve Tapril of Tappers Gin and Simon Rimmer of Sunday Brunch (that’s them in the picture above). Come hungry and thirsty!
Tappers founder Steve Tapril will explain techniques and flavours for “perfect serve” gin and tonic. He’ll also lead a tasting of Tappers’ limited-edition chocolate EGGCENTRIC gin.
Simon Rimmer will be preparing a tempting tiramisu LIVE with Menakao‘s 63% Craft Cooking Chocolate (you can also prepare this before or after the session, and a recipe card is included in the pack).
I’ll explain and explore four different craft chocolate bars (including Hogarth‘s Toasted Bread and Butter) and inviting you all to share your impressions over menti.com.
During the tasting, Simon, Steve and I will look for parallels in how to taste gins, tonics, tiramisus and chocolates. As ever, we are going to try and have as much audience participation as we can. It won’t quite be as disciplined as Sunday Brunch in terms of comparing tasting impressions, but it should allow everyone to have their say and ask LOTS of questions.
Wishing you all a great weekend (especially all the mothers out there)!
Spencer
