LCBO Food and Drink Holiday 2015

GIFTING  GOING WITH CHOCOLATE

The two most popular fillings for chocolates—nuts and caramel—take a good thing and, for many people, make it sweeter, nuttier and just plain better. NUTS & CARAMEL If you have ever bitten into a caramel apple, you will understand the effect of pairing a caramel-filled truffle with the highly concentrated apple flavours of Domaine Pinnacle Ice Cider ( LCBO 94094, 375 mL, $25.25), made via a process similar to that used for icewine. In fact, so intense and compelling is the experience that one small chocolate and an ounce or two of ice cider may be all the dessert you’ll need.     Of similar concentration is the same partnership made with Alvear Solera 1927 Pedro Ximenez Montilla ( LCBO 383422, 375 mL, $19.95) in place of the ice cider. P.X. dessert wines, as they are commonly known, are quite unlike the dry and likely stale sherries your great auntie used to drink, although they are produced in mostly the same manner. Instead of dry and subtle, though, they emerge from the process laden with flavours of raisin, date and other dried fruit, making them ideal partners to any caramelly, nutty, chocolatey delight.     For those with a palate that is not quite so sweet, Mount Gay Black Barrel Rum ( LCBO 395715, $39.95), aged in oak barrels charred until they turn black, provides forceful flavours of roasted brown sugar and toffee in a spirit that is round and luscious without being sweet or cloying. Coupled with a sugary mix of chocolate, caramel and nuts, the Black Barrel can tame the sweetness and bring forward more reserved flavour notes, while the chocolate will make an already bold rum taste just that much more so.

104  FOOD & DRI NK HOLIDAY 2015