Cocoavino seasonal collections

Product copy for Brooklyn-based CocoaVino (co-founded by me). The first luxury eco-chocolate company of its kind, from 2004 to 2009 CocoaVino produced handcrafted bonbons and confections made with organic, fair-trade and locally farm-sourced ingredients and flavored with wines and liqueurs. Critical praise and loyal fans around the country ensued.

The Magic Season Fall Bonbon Collection

The magic hour—a film term describing the perfect time before day becomes night, when the light softens and thoughts turn sentimental.

Each year has its magic hour when the heat has fallen away from us, but we’re not yet cold.

The world might be turning back to darkness, but not without a last fling of color—short-lived and beautiful, in the fiery oranges, reds and yellows that carry us into bare branches and spare winter light.

In love and weather, it’s what we know can’t last that makes us most wistful.

Indulge in the fleeting season with our Black Magic and White Magic bonbons—a mix of light and dark, sweet and fresh. Catch them now. Nothing this magical is meant to last.

THE FLAVORS

BLACK MAGIC

From Central Italy comes a love potion, a saffron-tinted spicy liqueur made from over 70 different barks and herbs and named after the witches, or strega, who first concocted it. Here buttery caramel lures fresh pumpkin with a splash of Liquore Strega and dark chocolate. In a spin and loving the spin it’s in — our dear pumpkin might never be the same again.

WHITE MAGIC

It’s a May-September romance. The scene is set against the subtle backdrop of white chocolate. Enter the Seckel pear — petite, fresh from a New York orchard, blushing round the edges and as sweet as anything you can remember. Enter Poire William — distinguished, complex, European, usually savored after dinner by sophisticated palettes. What draws them together? Could it be nostalgia? The softening light?  Either way, the pairing is irresistible.

Persephone Spring Bonbon Collection

Spring.  By the ice on the sidewalk, you’d never know it’s coming. But you feel it. The days are getting a little bit longer. Sundresses are hanging in shop windows. Your boot-imprisoned toes are yearning to walk free.

The ancient Greeks thought hell, or Hades, was a cold, damp place. They told a story about winter, of how Persephone, the beautiful young daughter of Demeter, goddess of the harvest and fruitfulness, is captured by the god Hades and dragged to the underworld to be his queen. Demeter is ravaged by sadness without her daughter. The land goes fallow. The fruit trees and flowers wither where they stand. The people are desperate. They cry out for intervention, and Persephone wins the privilege of spending half the year above ground. Demeter is overjoyed and lets the trees green and the flowers bloom again. Each year repeats this cycle, as Persephone spends two seasons in cold, dark hell and two seasons of bliss in the fresh air and sunshine.

Look forward. In a few weeks we’ll emerge from our dark apartments like Persephone from the underworld. We’ll go to the park to count the pale green buds. We’ll eat lunch outside and turn our faces to the sun. To help, we’ve created two bright flavors and painted them soft yellow and lavender.

Call out the season with the Persephone box. Spring might still feel a few weeks away, but it’s not too soon to start celebrating its return.

THE FLAVORS

HELEN 

The taste that launched a thousand sighs. White chocolate and limoncello streaked with silky, salty caramel in a dark chocolate shell — as fair and tempting as the lovely queen of Sparta when Paris stole her away to Troy. One bite will start an obsession. Two bites, and you’ll cheat your brother to get a third. Since the gods have made it thus, you’re hardly to blame.

DAPHNE 

Daphne was a nature girl. She shunned the limelight, the flashy parties, the whole velvet rope scene of dating a god. A wallflower by choice, she dodged Apollo’s calls. When he wouldn’t stop calling, she turned herself into a tree. We can’t all make such a clean getaway, but this bouquet of Mirabelle (a dainty golden plum eau de vie), wildflower honey and lavender in a field of dark chocolate makes for a great escape into the meadow of your mind.

© 2006 Cocoa Vino LLC