Vosges Mo’s Bacon Milk Chocolate Bar

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

Composition: Applewood Smoked Bacon, Alderwood Smoked Salt, 41% Milk Chocolate.
Region of Production: USA.
Price: $7.50 from Vosges’ site.

This is the first of Vosges’ gourmet chocolate bars that I’ll be reviewing. Rather than going for the traditional gourmet chocolate, Vosges attempts to jazz it up a little with the introduction of an abundance (overabundance to some) of ingredients, including everything from matcha tea to spicy chilies to walnuts and raisins. The Mo’s  Bar, an assortment of Bacon and Salt, is easily the most famous of the bunch—not surprising since Vosges serves a primarily American clientele. Moreover, it’s easily one of Vosges’ best. I’ve never liked bacon, nor was I a fan of the idea of mixing something so oily and fatty with chocolate, and yet Vosges even made a believer out of me.

Unfortunately, the presentation of the Mo’s Bacon Bar is a bit underwhelming. I like that it comes in a colorful box that highlights the ingredients with real photos, but the presentation goes downhill from there. The bar itself is divided into 8 large squares with alternating designs of a woman and the Vosges signature, neither of which comes off as too inventive. Nor does the Mo’s Bar break apart nicely, particularly because it has chunks of bacon within it, which interfere with the snap and harden the bar. In turn, the bar is not only hard to break apart but also gets very ragged edges when you do manage to snap off a piece.

But that’s a minor quibble, as the Mo’s Bar is both unique and incredibly flavorful. It is so intense that you can even smell the smoky bacon off of it. The taste is equally big. That’s largely because actual chunks of bacon are integrated into the chocolate. These chunks are so large, in fact, that they’re visible to the eye. The smoky and salty flavors come almost exclusively from these chunks, but because bacon has such an intense flavor in itself, that smoky saltiness infuses the whole bar. Bacon and chocolate might sound like an odd combination, but the fusion is fantastic, both because it improves the texture and the taste of the bar.

In terms of the taste, the bar achieves an extremely complex balance among sweet, smoky, and salty flavors. Since it’s a milk chocolate bar, it’s on the very sweet side, but you never notice that sweetness too much because there’s always a smoky undertone that suppresses it partially. The salt then kicks in during the aftertaste to create a surprisingly satisfying contrast with the rich milkiness.

In terms of texture, the bacon and salt add both a bit of chewiness and crunchiness, depending on the size of the pieces. Larger pieces of bacon tend to be soft so that you can keep munching on them, whereas smaller ones have a nice crispness and just crack on the bite.

Finally, I find the chocolate itself to be great. To be fair, it’s not the highest quality of milk chocolate out there, even using artificial emulsifiers (lecithin), which is unexpected for such a pricy, gourmet bar. It thus has somewhat of an artificial creaminess. Still, it’s very nicely balanced and at just the right amount of cocoa so that it doesn’t overshadow the bacon or salt, whether through too much bitterness, cocoa, or sweetness.

Vosges’ Mo’s Bacon Bar, then, is an extraordinary balancing act—one that manages to find just the right synergy between savory and sweet. Regardless of the technical shortcomings of the bar, I’d easily recommend it to any lover of milk chocolate or bacon, as well as to any adventurous eater.

Presentation: 2.5/5.0
Taste: 4.5/5.0
Flavor (Integration): 4.8+/5.0
Melt: 1.5/5.0
Length: 1.5/5.0. Dissipates quickly, even more so than other milk chocolates.
Value: 3.8/5.0. Overpriced for a bar that tastes so artificial, but still very unique.
Overall Score: 4.1/5.0