Monty Bojangles – Dark Truffle Collection
Monty Bojangles is not a brand that is too known or common in my side of the world, specifically the Frigid North. It is however quite an established brand in Europe, specifically the UK. It’s also huge in certain parts of Asia and treated as a fancy, exotic imported brand of chocolates.
They also make a point to tell you its vegan, which is never a bad thing if it can be done without adverse effect on the flavour. Having said that, most chocolates are usually vegan by nature in lieu of what is contained within. Sure, it’s easy to cross that line and accidentally use non-vegan ingredients like gelatin to thicken things, but for the most part chocolate products have a much easier time avoiding that.
There’s three flavours here – caramel haze, cocoa nib nights, and cocoberry blush. As far as distribution goes, there’s 4 cocoa nib nights, 5 caramel haze and 6 cocoberry blush. Fancy names aside, I am excited to dive back into this style of truffles. It reminds me of when I was a kid and these were all the rage. The fad seems to have died down a bit, but I do still remember enjoying this format a lot before fatigue set in.
Caramel haze is a combination of bits of caramel as well as hazelnut pieces. This one is a pretty decent combination of sweet from the caramel and nuttiness from the hazelnuts. The texture is also nice with the bits of caramel and hazelnut coming together like a praline chocolate.
Cocoa nib nights is a straight forward truffle with cocoa nibs in the center for added texture. The flavour is a nice, dark chocolate that’s likely in the 55 to 65 range, and has a nice rich flavour. The texture is very smooth and melts quickly, with the nibs adding a bit of crunch and a slight smoky, earthy quality to it.
Cocoberry blush is very different from what I’m used to as far as these types of truffles go. This is a marriage of chocolate, raspberry and coconut. The raspberry flavour hits you instantly, and the coconut follows soon after. You could be forgiven if you forgot there was dark chocolate here because the raspberry is so strong and aromatic. The texture is a typical melty truffle, but then you have the coconut flakes adding a bit of variation to the texture. If you’ve ever had a pastry with coconut flakes on top, well that’s what this feels like.
I thoroughly enjoyed this product, and it had a good combination of flavours ranging from a more classic flavour to a more unique, playful one which surprised me in Cocoberry blush. While I wouldn’t mind getting this again, it’s worth noting these are not cheap and command a premium. While I personally prefer more hipster, local chocolates for the same price, the benefit is this is a fairly established brand and their packaging makes for some great gift giving.
