Intrigue Blog & Chocolate Shop!

In addition to The Seattle Luxury Chocolate Salon, we tabled at Silver Lake’s Sangria Weekend this past Saturday, July 12th. This is the second Sangria Weekend Silver Lake has invited us to attend, and boy-o-boy was there some exciting Sangrias being served.

Louis Strutton, Silver Lake’s Marketing Specialist, was the mastermind behind the recipes (which he may send you if you ask him nicely). This year, he had three Sangrias on tap:

Sauvignon Blanc and White Tea Sangria – A light sangria with a blend of white tea, lemons, mango, ginger ale, and many other ingredients. Aaron describes it as tasting like white peaches.

Chocolate Basil Merlot Sangria – So interesting! It was not a sweet sangria by any means, but instead a fruity, full-bodied flavor that left you wanting more and more. I visited this sangria many times over the course of the day.

Berry & Watermelon Sangria – The weekend favorite. It was an interesting blend of fruits and the sweetest drink on the table; just what the crowds wanted on this hot Saturday afternoon.

Docco’s also had a table set up on the patio.

They were serving meatball sandwiches made with their BBQ sauces. Docco’s has a range of heat in their BBQ sauces from original to hot to extra hot. My favorite is their merlot blend though. If you’ve never had a BBQ sauce made with red wine, be sure to visit Docco’s when they are tabling at Silver Lake again.

Thanks again to everyone that visited us at the event!

In our last blog entry we invited all of you to visit Intrigue Chocolates and 22 other chocolate companies from around the northwest at The Seattle Luxury Chocolate Salon. The event was hosted by TasteTV.com which hosts various foodie events across the country. This was the first chocolate event they’ve hosted in Seattle.

When we first arrived there was a bit of a scare – the fire alarm went off! Aaron and I did our best to keep our chocolate out of the sun until the doors opened up and everyone was allowed back inside. Due to the delay though, we had to do a rushed set-up before crowds of chocolate lovers came rushing through the doors. Fortunately Carla volunteered to help for the day, and she was able to hurry the process along. (Thanks, Carla!)

The event was a huge success. TasteTV.com reported attendance of over 500, so needless to say we stayed busy at the table from opening at 11am to closing at 5pm. Saint Basil ended up being the favorite at our table, and the new flavor Tequila-Lime received a good amount of attention as well. The only request we have for next year is a better air conditioning system. By 1pm it was hotter inside the conference room than it was outside and chocolate was melting quickly! It turns out that a passing cruise ship had triggered the earlier fire alarm, which shut down all of the facility’s systems and no one was on hand to reboot the air conditioning.

Awards were announced at the end of the show. Intrigue Chocolates placed in the following categories:

Tie for 1st place: Best Chocolate Flavor
Tie for 2nd place: Best Chocolate Truffle
Honorable Mention: Best Chocolatier (Go Aaron!)
Honorable Mention: Best Chocolate for Wine

You can see all the event awards here a TasteTV.com’s salon awards site.

Not bad for our first competition! Considering the other companies present (Theo, Amano, Guittard, etc), it was a honor to be recognized at all.

It was also nice to have several friends visit us at the event. You all made the day far less stressful for us, and it was nice to have a cheering section when our names were announced for the awards.

This Sunday is a big happening for Intrigue Chocolates! We’ll be participating in an event titled ‘The Seattle Luxury Chocolate Salon’, hosted by tastetv.com. This is their first major chocolate show in the Northwest and it’s happening here in Seattle at Pier 66.

Talk about a lot of work! Since this is the first time we will be squaring off our chocolates against other amazing Seattle based chocolate companies, we want to make sure we have all our bases covered. That includes a couple fancy embroidered shirts, new stamps for the chocolate boxes, new signs, and a line-up of all time favorite chocolate truffle flavors:

• Roza Red – made with Roza Red wine, a Cabernet-Merlot blend from Silver Lake Winery
• Lemon – made with fresh lemon zest
• Saint Basil – fresh organic basil
• Jamaican HOT Chocolate – our signature spicy truffle
• Tequila-Lime – tequila añejo (aged tequila) and fresh lime zest
• Vrai Chai - black tea, ginger, black pepper, cinnamon, orange peel, astragalus, cardamom, coriander, galangal, gingko, gotu-kola, fo-ti, nutmeg, cloves, vanilla beans

If you are interested in learning more about the event, check out the events page or go to tastetv.com. At the show there is a $20 fee to participate, but you can bet you’ll get your fair share of chocolate. Plus, we would really appreciate all your encouragement and support!

Welcome to the Intrigue Chocolates blog! Intrigue Chocolates Co. was created on September 1st of 2006 by chocolatier Aaron Barthel. He had a vision: create chocolate truffles in the original French tradition. In essence, there are no tempered chocolate shells, no wax, little sugar, and no artificial fats or preservatives. This way the truffles are able to showcase its delicate, creamy flavor without distraction.

We have created this blog as an informal way to showcase past events, feature new truffle flavors, promote upcoming events, and most importantly to thank the many people that taste our specialty chocolate truffles. We will post event pictures; you may even appear in one or two! Feel free to send some our way as well and we’ll try to include them. We will also post “letters from the chocolatier”, sharing tips about making your own truffles and advice on pairing them with food & wine.

This blog is also an opportunity for us to stay in touch with the chocolate-loving community and offer you a forum for honest feedback. We want to hear what you have to say! There are a couple ways to do so. Your first option is to leave a comment attached to any of the blog posts. Simply click on the ‘comments’ link a the bottom of the entry. Your second option is to email us directly at info@intriguechocolates.com. All other contact information is listed on the Contact page.

Thanks!