Chocolate with Whisky by Tiroler Edle, malty and tart
Chocolate with Whisky by Tiroler Edle is a dark chocolate with 60 percent cocoa over a ganache made of fresh cream and Tyrolean single malt. The spirit comes from master distiller Christoph Kössler and is added to the filling uncooked, which is why the bar contains alcohol.
Chocolate with Whisky is the bar for malt lovers from Tiroler Edle in Landeck, fifty grams of dark chocolate over a soft ganache of cream, vanilla, and single malt. The barrel in which the spirit was aged is clearly noticeable in the taste.
Tart snap, followed by malt and cream
The shell snaps with a dark, crisp sound, revealing a ganache that turns soft almost immediately in the mouth. On the cut, it appears as a dark, glossy band.
The first impression is chocolate, the second is malt, and in between, the cream slides in, taking the edge off the whisky. What remains is a dry warmth in the mouth, like after a small sip.
Sweetness and tartness are unusually close to each other here, because the high percentage of bean catches the barrel sweetness. Anyone familiar with whisky will recognize the character of the spirit, only embedded and without any harshness.
What a single malt is
Single malt means: distilled from malted barley, in a single distillery, without blending with other distillates.
In Austria, this is a rarity, as the country's distilling culture traditionally relies on fruit—apricots, plums, and rowanberries. Christoph Kössler distills both in Tyrol and is one of the few who have attempted grain-based spirits. Whisky from the Alpine region has therefore remained an exception to this day.
The barley is malted by allowing it to sprout and then kiln-drying it, which converts the starch into fermentable sugar and gives it its malty sweetness. Without this step, the barley would remain neutral.
What the barrel brings to the filling
It is aged first in new Limousin oak barrels, the coarse-pored wood that also gives cognac its character.
This is followed by a finish in used sweet wine barrels, whose wood is still soaked with wine, returning sweetness to the whisky. This is exactly where the soft, almost honey-like tones found in the filling come from. A used barrel is never truly empty; its wood still holds the previous contents.
To ensure nothing of this is lost, the spirit is stirred into the cooled ganache only at the end, as heat is the first thing to carry away fine aromas. At Tiroler Edle in Landeck, all of this is done by hand, and the cream used comes from Tyrolean Grey cattle.
After dinner, with coffee, as a gift
At room temperature, the malt stands out the most; chilled, it is primarily the tartness that remains. It pairs well with an espresso, even better with a glass of port, and a dram from the same distillery alongside completes the experience. After a hearty dinner, a piece is a perfect finish.
As a gift, it explains itself to anyone who likes whisky, without needing to say a word. Because the alcohol is added to the filling uncooked, it remains a treat for adults.
Also intensely flavored is the walnut nougat with stone pine salt; you can also find other chocolate bars and the entire Tiroler Edle assortment.
