Ah, Sugar, Sugar 77% (V) Dark

Envision spring-time amidst its fullest ‘come-hither’ spectacle, everything around us astir, the air bristling with blossom-scent and bird-song. Some seduce, others swoon, and so passes the season.

The date palm is no exception, its ‘love life’ a particularly desire-ridden display. You see, even in nature, date palms crop up as already-paired couples, with males and females primed to woo or be wooed by a nearby mate. As for the matter of pollination, well, that remains a capricious affair: a male palm must rely on a third party—the wind, a bee’s wings—to transfer his pollen to the flowers of a neighboring female. To combat the uncertainties to which nature is prone, the art of hand-pollination was born. 

It is a delicate process: pollen collected from male flowers is carefully dusted onto clusters of just-opened female flowers. And if all transpires as intended, the pollinated female will soon burst forth with an abundance of fruit.

But a myth persists amongst date farmers: should a female date palm remain unproductive, even after being pollinated by a male tree, she must be studied closely—most likely, there’s another male that she longs for.

Of course, all of this is prelude to a secondary ‘romance’—and one to which we’re partial—that carried out between dates and chocolate. Bar au Chocolat’s ‘Ah, Sugar, Sugar’ brings the two together, with dates that are first dried, then crushed into sugar. When blended with Trinidad cacao, what plays out is more than just a passing fancy—it’s a relationship destined to last.

Flavor Profile Cacao, pink peppercorn, red currant

Ingredients Cacao, organic date sugar

Allergen Free of egg, gluten, milk, nuts, soy, wheat

Net Weight 70 g