Drink of the Week: Askinosie 75% Soconusco Sipping Chocolate

The directions for this chocolate seemed odd at first: Just 4 tablespoons of milk, really? Nevertheless, we dutifully heated the tiny portion of milk and stirred in the chocolate morsels until they blended into a thick, mahogany liquid.

First sip: Whoa, this is potent stuff!

Second sip: Hmm, this is much less sweet than a lot of drinking chocolates. You can really taste the …

Third sip: … pure chocolate, mmm, deep, dark, bittersweet chocolate.

By the time we’d finished half the serving, we realized why Askinosie suggests such a diminutive portion—this stuff is so rich and satisfying, you don’t need more than a demitasse to satisfy the strongest of cravings. We recommend drinking this grown-up drinking chocolate as a dessert after a spicy meal, and as you do, you can tell your guests the story behind Askinosie: The company was founded in 2006 by Shawn Askinosie, a criminal defense attorney who, after burning out on lawyering, decided to start making chocolate—and not just any chocolate, but single-origin chocolate sourced directly from small farmers. Askinosie presses his own cocoa butter and eschews typical additives like vanilla or lecithin. The result is chocolate that tastes like chocolate, period.