Hot Beverage 2010

sofi Gold Winner 2010
Outstanding Hot Beverage

The appeal of this year’s Outstanding Hot Beverage is not only its quality and taste, but the experience that comes with preparing it. While many Europeans are familiar with melting chocolate on a stick in milk to make hot chocolate, this concept is not as common in America. Belgium’s Chocolate Source, a U.S. importer of Belgian brands, based in Wellesley, Mass., wanted to bring this European tradition across the Atlantic.

Company owner Christophe Van Riet was pleasantly surprised when one of his key chocolatiers in Belgium came to him with the Choc-o-lait Hot Chocolate Stick, created by a small entrepreneurial company named Party Partners. By happy coincidence, soon after learning of the product, Van Riet and co-owners of Party Partners, Frank Decuper and Koen Vansynghel, happened to all miss their trains out of Brussels en route to the ISM confectionery trade show in Cologne, Germany in 2006. The three met by chance while waiting for the next train and Van Riet’s search for the perfect Hot Chocolate Stick was over.

The simple design features a wooden stick with a block of 100 percent Belgium chocolate at the end. Consumers can stir or let the stick sit in a cup of hot milk and the chocolate dissolves in a minute, creating a premium Belgium-style hot chocolate. Sticks are available in Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, Hazelnut, Caramel Chocolate, Organic Dark Chocolate and Cointreau. The company has also introduced a gift pack featuring a mug with four different Hot Chocolate Stick varieties. —Dennis Marrero

More About the Product

Hot Chocolate Sticks are an innovative product also known as “hot chocolate on a stick”. It contains 100 percent Belgian chocolate. Stir into a cup of hot milk and in one minute you have a steaming cup of delicious hot chocolate. Flavors include Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, Nut and Cointreau. Available in gift sets with or without a white mug with the exclusive Choc-o-lait logo.

Suggested retail price: $1.99-2.30/15-ounce pack.

Website: belgiumschocolatesource.com

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