goat milk

Mast Goat Milk Chocolate

Mast Brothers Goat Milk Chocolate ingredients label

Hello chocolate addicts!

Yes, I’m alive. It’s been a while since I’ve posted (because life). But I’ve been feeling inspired recently, so…

Actually, I lie. My writer’s block remains. But… I do want to share a recent experience I had with my favorite niche chocolate variety. That would be, of course, dark milk chocolate. In this case dark GOAT MILK chocolate.

Weirdly enough, the chocolate bar that inspired this post is actually made by one of my least favorite chocolate makers — Mast Brothers.

(Cue ominous music from Jaws.)

Actually, all joking aside, it was high time I gave the bearded brothers’ bars another chance. It had been two years since I’d last tasted their chocolate. In fact, I don’t think I’d sampled a Mast bar since they were outed by that Dallas Food article accusing them of… how to put this delicately… minor fibbing about their chocolate production practices.

In the last two years, not only has Mast rebranded (dropping the “Brothers” to become just Mast Chocolate), they also dramatically improved the texture of their chocolate. Gone is the grittiness and that caustic astringency so noticeable in their bars of yore. The new Mast bars are creamier, more balanced, and actually kind of… edible. Hurrah!

But I didn’t sit down to write this post in order to trumpet improvements at Mast Chocolate — far from it. What actually got me excited is the wide availability of their goat milk chocolate bar — not always an easy flavor to find (thank you Whole Foods). And the new, improved Mast goat milk chocolate bar is almost everything I want in a goat milk chocolate — it’s sour, funky, pungent, creamy and interesting in a way regular milk chocolate rarely is.

To be fair, I’m NOT suggesting you go out and buy this chocolate bar. In an old post reviewing Manoa’s goat milk chocolate, I linked to Estelle Tracy’s hilarious video of her reaction to trying goat milk chocolate. Needless to say, the flavor of goat milk chocolate is not for everybody!

But if you like super funky tasting milk chocolate, I highly suggest giving the Mast bar another chance.

Be sure to let me know what you think!

Manoa 69% Goat Milk Chocolate from Hawaii

Manoa 69% Goat Milk Chocolate from Hawaii ingredients

I recently watched a very cute video by one of my favorite chocolate bloggers, Estelle Tracy of 37 Chocolates, who was reviewing Mast Brothers’ Dark Goat Milk Chocolate. I’m linking to Estelle’s full video here and encourage you to watch it if you have time, as it’s quite informative. But to sum up her review, she thought the chocolate tasted a little TOO much like goat cheese for her taste (truth be told, it’s not the first time I’ve heard negative things about that Mast Brothers bar, although I haven’t tasted it myself).

That said, I did recently try a 69% dark goat’s milk chocolate made by Hawaii-based bean-to-bar chocolate maker Manoa and LOVED it. I couldn’t put it down.

Before I say anything else, it’s worth noting that I actually love goat cheese. Be that as it may, I never thought cheese and chocolate went well together (there are exceptions, like this salty Parmesan dark chocolate by chocolatier Xocolatl de Davíd, and this tangy blue cheese milk chocolate by chocolate maker Lillie Belle Farms).

But back to Manoa.

First, a brief description of the bar: this is a VERY DARK dark milk chocolate bar. Because of that, I’m guessing the percentage of goat’s milk powder in this bar is quite low. Even so, it packs quite a flavor punch — the bar is tangy and a little sour, in a pleasant way. While the bar did have the characteristic mouth feel of a milk chocolate — that awesome milk fat melt — it’s a surprisingly uncreamy (that really should be a word) milk chocolate bar, bordering on chalky.

What I LOVE about this goat’s milk bar is that Manoa doesn’t use extra sugar to camouflage the sour goat’s milk flavor. Instead they let the potent astringency of their beans balance the lovely, funky, earthy goat’s milk. The overall effect is an addictive umami deliciousness.

I highly recommend seeking out Manoa’s 69% Goat Milk Chocolate bar, which you can buy on Manoa’s website or at specialty chocolate retailers. If not, I know you can sometimes buy it here on The Meadow’s site (and in their chocolate shops in Portland and New York). If you do end up trying it, please email me or post in the comments section of this blog and let me know what you think.

And as always, happy nibbling.