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Info Details
Country USA   
Type Dark   (dark-light in a way; 75%; Lot No. 100098)
Strain Hybrid   (modest Criollo germplasm)
Source Madagascar   (Sambirano Valley)
Flavor Crossover   
Style Classic      
lo
med
hi
CQ
Sweetness
Acidity
Bitterness
Roast
Intensity
Complexity
Structure
Length
Impact
Patric likes skinny-quail model types.

Witness its 67%.

This one put on some pounds, tipping the scales at 75%. Now she can really party to Butch Walker’s The Weight of Her... likes to smell cocaine & sip champagne... on her way to a flavorgasm™.

A bar that brings total compensation for those afflicted with STDs & feel forced into continence & abstinence as well as the ecconnoisseur on the lookout for value during economic downturns who must sacrifice the Shadow Yacht, a 650 Gulfstream jet, & $429,000 Patek watch, or that bottle of auctionable 1787 Thomas Jefferson wine.

This boasts an outlandish QPR (Quality-to-Price Ratio): exceedingly high quality / ridiculously low price.

Alan McClure of Patric should be appointed Secretary of the Treasury. The guy doesn’t just print money like any G-man with a color copier can. Oh, no, he earns it the old Smith-Barney way. He makes it, then molds it.

Jump on it.
Appearance   4.9 / 5
Color: titian beauty
Surface: immaculate...
Temper: ... matte (w/ just the softest burnish)
Snap: almost too gorgeous to break it: sharp & incisive, speaks loud & clear (lighter hue on the inside & very early onset bloom)
Aroma   9 / 10
similar to its 70% sister: high & low / soft & hard - citrus cedarwood bound in leather -> aerates dark berries (black raspberry & dried blueberry) to golden raisin -> smoked pine alludes to warm roast
Mouthfeel   11.4 / 15
Texture: dry (Snap gives it away)
Melt: awkward; takes a while to get going then swells nicely & pulps out
Flavor   46.2 / 50
bursts open golden raisin -> champagne grape -> blonde raspberry -> pine & cedar forests encroach -> sours toward plum -> Madagascar gin on cue but w/ a twist (coca!!) -> pink grapefruit mimosa -> woods splinter into drifting bitters... until a delayed 3rd wave brings the Criollo chocolate bang (quasi-Milk Choc) surrounded by almond & hazelnut -> tricks out a brief Snickers™ & goes peanuts
Quality   18.9 / 20
Varietally correct. Had the progression halted at mid-palate with its deep tannins scouring over the citric wash (pushing some people to back-off especially when it rides those brash cedar-pines) this bar would’ve been another false promise.

But stay on it.

In regaining energy for that power surge of a 3rd wave, it vaults close if not right into greatness, in a case of unexpected length from a Madagascar.

Could stand more baseline chocolate presence, perhaps out of reach for the island, as it rarely delivers strong cocoa associated with the Atlantic coast of Africa (Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire). Or the Ecuadors of yore. Except if hot-button roasted in the Marcolini style which could threaten the balance of forces in this power bar in which the top & bottom registers are well-tethered. But that would burn off fruit-essence in exchange for Maillard reactive caramel notes instead &, all things considered, trade down.

Other than the texture (somewhere in the temper butter crystals failed to sync up in alignment), this release, from this origin at least, is nearing perfection.

Patric re-ups its game (clearing away the burp of that Rio Caribe) & knocks it out.

Pass the smelling salts.

ING: cocoa mass, sugar

Reviewed Autumn 2009

  

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