Lake Champlain 5-Star Peanut

Posted by Edmund in Chocolate, Featured Articles, Gourmet Chocolate Bars, USA | 0 comments

Composition: Milk chocolate, Peanuts, Peanut Butter, and Crisp Rice.
Country of Production: USA.
Price: $3.80 for 1.9 oz. bar (53 g).

The bar doesn’t look like much at the start. It’s simply a large rectangular bar, with no frills whatsoever. It is, however, well-made. As I bit in, I found a thick layer of peanut butter paste, with chunks of nuts and rice integrated seamlessly throughout. Never did the ingredients jut out, though I could see the color of the peanut butter through the bottom of the chocolate.

And the bar tastes and feels superb, as the ingredients meld into a perfect harmony. The peanut butter paste provides a backdrop of rich creamy nuttiness, only amplified by the crunchy, large chunks of fresh peanuts. The crisp rice provides an added layer of crunch, but one more like what you’d get in a kit kat. The thin milk chocolate shell helps to bring it all together, counterbalancing the peanut richness with some sweetness, though a very controlled one. Topping it all off is a light, but noticeable, touch of salt on the peanuts, making your mouth pucker from the constant interplay between salty and sweet.

In one candy bar, then, you get a variety of flavors and textures. On the texture side, the creamy, smooth peanut butter brings a medley of crunchy textures together for a constantly changing mouth feel. As for the flavors, the nutty, salty, sweet, and fatty balance each other out so that neither the peanut butter not the sugar come off as too abrasive or dominant. The chocolate can, however, make the bar slightly too sweet near the end. I do still enjoy the light bit of buttery nuttiness left across the mouth in the finish.

Scores

Presentation: 3.0/5.0
Taste: 4.5/5.0
Flavor: 4.6/5.0
Value: 4.5/5.0
Length: N/A
Melt: N/A
Verdict: 4.3+/5.0