Colin Gasko of Rogue Chocolatier makes artisan chocolate from beans to bar in a factory the size of your bedroom. We just saw Gasko in a feature on the new Gourmet website, and we couldn't have been more fascinated by this 22-year-old's quixotic chocolate factory.
See, there are plenty of artisan chocolatiers and small-batch confectioners doing their thing on a small scale, but the process of making chocolate, from beans to the finished thing, is a whole other world. It usually requires equipment that costs more than a Manhattan penthouse, and takes up at least equal floorspace. Enter Colin Gasko, son of a theoretical physicist...
Gasko got his start working at Whole Foods and in other food establishments and became fascinated with chocolate. He started tinkering with machines to see if he could tweak them to suit the long, complicated chocolate-making process (one of the machines he uses started its life making dosa flour from lentils). His dad, a physicist, talked through some of the science with him, and his bedtime reading consisted of obscure chocolate technical manuals.
In the end he found a way, seemingly by magic, to make two very, very good bars of chocolate. One was described, rather fancifully, as massive on the palate, offering notes of walnut, aged peat-smoked whiskey, sourdough toast, bacon, blackberry, and currant liqueur. Whoa. Gasko does not even own a car, so he and his buddy deliver his final product by bike to the handful of Minneapolis stores and restaurants that carry it.
We haven't tried his chocolate yet, but plan to as soon as we can get our hands on some. The sheer willpower and ingenuity it takes to produce this - something that only a handful of companies in the whole world do - is amazing. We're keeping an eye on Rogue Chocolatier.
You can buy his two bars through his website.
More on Colin Gasko and Rogue Chocolatier
• The Smallest Chocolate Factory in the World
• New Kid on the Block
• Gourmet: Rogue Chocolatier
(Image credit: Jana Freiband for for Minneapolis City Pages)
he's my age!
is he single? :) wouldn't any girl love this guy delivering CHOCOLATE to your house by bike!
view elizabeth in AL's profile
my good friend from minneapolis gave me a couple of these bars of chocolate for christmas. haven't eaten them yet, but i'm really excited to!
and i love the packaging.
view katie's profile
Yummy chocolate and cute guy. Win-win.
view Cakespy's profile
my husband and i ate a little bit of these chocolate bars last night. so amazing!!! the sambirano definitely had a citrus-ey tang to it. but the ocumare was hands down our favorite. it's what you think of when you want a good, rich dark chocolate. you close your eyes and just feel a rush! AWESOME!
view katie's profile
Both bars are likely to be the best chocolate the average person will ever eat. The Ocumare bar is more suited to the average person, being more conventionally flavored, but my personal favorite is the Sambriano, with its light mouth feel and citrus notes that complement the richness in the bar.
If you're like most people, you've tried 70% chocolate bars by the big makers and likely found them to be somewhat bitter (Green & Black's -- now owned by Cadbury, hence the downgrade in their chocolate's quality) or almost inedible in their burnt-and-dusty taste (Hershey's). You will not, repeat, not, get these sensations from Rogue Chocolatier's products. They are smooth as silk and as complex as a symphony, with the different flavors making their entry on your tastebuds in stages. (Oh, and he has a whole bunch of new bars out that I can't wait to try!)
Colin Gasko is on his way to greatness -- I can see him being the best chocolatier in America by the time he's thirty, and he's more than halfway on his way to being there right now.
view khafara's profile