It seemed like only a few short years ago when if you weren’t buying Hershey, or Nestle in the states, and Cadbury or Lindt in Europe, then you simply weren’t going to eat chocolate. Of course there is See’s for your old fashioned holiday box and over-rated Godiva for those who think they know chocolate but don’t…ahem…

With the advent of the Interwebs, where even small companies get a global presence, small and special chocolatiers like Vosges are showing up en masse, shaking things way up, with chocolates like a peanut butter cup that rivals Reese’s. The new recipes from these artisanal chocolatiers are perhaps opening the doors for bigger companies to take risks; they can’t keep resting on their laurels, you know. Gotta keep the customers intrigued and satisfied, and thus why a company like Tabasco suddenly jumps into the chocolate game.

The mother-in-law was hosting a few of the cousins for a weekend and she took the kids to Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco. You know the place: on the water, chocolate and tourists. And she picked up these little babies.

They were about a 1-1/2 inch pie slice, kinda small IMHO. I could have used more. But nonetheless, I got some chocolate and it was free so I shut up.

Now if you happen to be the type of person who doesn’t like spice, and doesn’t like Tobasco, I don’t think I need to say that You Won’t Like These. However, if you do like spice but you’re on the fence with Tabasco, perhaps liking something with a little more Mexican flavor like Cholula, I still think you will like this stuff.

I’m a big user of Tabasco. It’s in my top 5 all-time condiments besides salt, pepper and Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce. So yes, the deck was loaded going into this review. The thing I’ve always loved about Tobasco is that it adds heat without overbearing flavor. There are subtle tones in there of course – pepper and vinegar the most overt – but Tobasco gives heat to things that already have good flavor. Unlike the aforementioned Sriracha and Cholula sauces for example, that provide the heat with other, strong flavors that can cloud a dish’s original intention (not always a bad thing by the way).

So with this Tobasco Spice Chocolate – that’s what you get. A good, hard relatively strong dark chocolate that once you start chewing, gives you a heated spice. Nice chocolate perk me up. It starts low, in fact at first I can’t taste the spice, then once you get to swallowing, the pepper kicks in so you get the sweet and dark up front and then the spicy sex going down. Yes – I did just write that.

Now you: lovers of all things heat, you people who like more than just Rice Krispies in your chocolate — go out and buy some Tobasco Spicy Chocolate and add a little zest to the pedestrian cocoa experience.