Chocolate. #TheBestHotChocolate.

Northwest Highlands of Scotland. August 18, 2018. Blog post.

I am Swiss. From Switzerland. 😉
I know that was done twice, and seriously – I am Swiss – do you really want to teach me about good chocolate? Or even about #TheBestHotChocolate 😉 – you know, Switzerland is one of those leading chocolate nations in the world … ?

This blog post answers the question, if a Swiss chocolate lover can survive more than 10 days in Scotland.

Cocoa Mountain Balnakeil, Durness

When I was in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland this August and asked someone about ‘what to see’ in Durness (see the map below) they always pointed me to Cocoa Mountain Balnakeil, the famous chocolate factory, restaurant and chocolate store – it would be an absolute ‘Must Go’ … so I started to research about Cocoa Mountain – their ads in the tourists brochures and on the back of my North Coast 500 Map (NC500) map were looking promising enough. But you know, never trust the ads!

Cocoa Mountain’s message is unambiguous:

Buy luxury chocolate from Cocoa Mountain Scotland: From Cocoa Mountain. © Cocoa Mountain Ltd, source http://cocoamountain.co.uk/

And furthermore:

The best hot chocolate, handmade in the highlands.
© Cocoa Mountain Ltd, source http://cocoamountain.co.uk/

Cocoa Mountain Ltd even created their own hashtag: #TheBestHotChocolate.

Hmm, really the best? I tend to be very sceptical to someone using a marketing slogan like ‘TheBest’OfWhatEver …

Why not going there and tasting it myself?

At Cocoa Mountain Balnakeil, Durness I started with a small compact dark chocolate cake with distinctive grains of sea salt; in fact it was rather a small bar of chocolate than a soft cake.

Dear me, already this small starter was cutting down delicious! What a unforgetable pleasure to taste the firework of grainy sea salt contrasting interestingly to the dark fully flavoured and breathtaking sweet bitterness of the chocolate – remember, it that was only the starter – wow! I was right blown away – considering the fact that this little chocolate bartype cake was just the starter, just imagine the famous hot chocolate for which Cocoa Mountain is well-known … 😉 – would it really top it?

After this small sized starter I ordered one of the celebrated hot chocolates (#TheBestHotChocolate) afterwards ‘as my main course’ 😉 having a clear conscience – I chose the regular size of #TheBestHotChocolate; from my point of view the regular size seemed to be large enough! To be honest, it was huge!

Every single hot chocolate of Cocoa Mountain is a hand made work of art, so I had to wait a couple of minutes with sizzling anticipation, and then …

… it finally arrived … what a dream. #TheBestHotChocolate.

Enjoy!

And the winner is …

Comparing Switzerlands chocolate to Scotlands is unfair; as you probably know, Switzerland is famous for its fantastic chocolate and its well-known chocolatiers – and beside that for much more as well – which we don’t want to discuss here and now 😉 …

But – admitted, I know it’s all a question of individual taste, and perhaps I was positively influenced by the ‘being on vacation-bonus’ …

… but the best hot chocolate I ever had was the one of

Cocoa Mountain Balnakeil #TheBestHotChocolate

Really. Next year I will return with my family.

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Images: Smartphone Samsung A5 (2016). Edited in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

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