Venchi ‘Cuba’ Praline Cigar
Here’s something a little unusual, and certainly one up on the sweet cigarettes we used to have as kids. One hundred grams of dark and milk chocolate with a praline filling, made by Venchi (purveyors of inedible Absinthe chocolate). Certainly the only type of cigar I’m likely to chomp on these days!
It’s actually a combination of a 56% dark chocolate outer layer, a 33.3% milk chocolate interior, and a central core of praline with Piedmont hazelnuts.
As you can see, definitely three distinct elements to this ‘bar’.
When I broke a piece off for tasting, the praline centre started to break down almost immediately, flooding my mouth with lovely milky, hazelnut flavours, and then as the dark and milk chocolate joined in I tasted good rounded cocoa flavours from both the milk and dark. The cocoa flavours come through very well, giving way to the hazelnut pieces as you finish each mouthful. The centre is quite sweet but not too sweet, and the chocolate has a good soft mouthfeel, leaving the palate clean for the nutty finale. It certainly changed my previous opinions of Venchi’s ability to produce good quality(or even edible!) chocolate.
It’s a good balance of flavours, put together very well and offered in this slightly jokey packaging. Premium quality chocolate offered in an unusual format – not the first or last time we’ve seen that on Chocablog, eh?
This was bought in Plymouth, so they are available in the UK, and I’ve seen them on sale in motorway services in Italy and France. Definitely a good pick as a gift for someone with a chocolate and tobacco addiction!
Information
- Buy it online from:
- Contains dark chocolate, milk chocolate (33, 56% cocoa solids).
- Filed under dark chocolate, hazelnut, italy, milk chocolate, praline, venchi.
It does look, erm, different! I’ll definitely pick one up if I find one. I’m no longer a smoker, but I might give in to tobacco cravings once in a blue moon, as long as the “tobacco” is actually chocolate 😉
I’m with Maggie – I’d be better off ‘falling off the wagon’, cigarette-wise, with these bad boys.
Venchi made exceedingly good truffles. The rum truffles I stock are absolutely divine, you can certainly taste the rum.
Hi,
My family imports Venchi and sells it wholesale throughout the United States. We actually import many Venchi chocolate products as well as other producers. Please see our website is http://doralgourmet.com/. Feel free to contact the owner Dora Bonaccoltla (dora@doralgourmet.com or 718-224-7413) or me Scott Rubin (646-469-4126 or FineItalianFoods@aol.com). Feel free to ask me any questions.
Regards