Hasta La Ideas

Chocolate to melt away the woes of the U.S.’s biggest shopping day of the year

While Black Friday refers to the day that often finally puts retailers in the black for the first time in the year, other phrases—black tie, black label, black book, black diamond—imply the class of spoils that such a cash infusion might afford. Playing on the concept, Compartes Chocolate’s Black Collection, launched today, makes a fitting gift for a CEO with a sweet tooth.

Impossible to resist, the collection uses premium ingredients—black sesame and wasabi, Macallan single-malt scotch, black truffles, and Guinness Stout—paired with sumptuous patterns in edible ink and organic single-origin dark chocolate (all fair-trade certified from Madagascar, Venezuela and Ecuador) to make each a little handmade jewel of chocolate decadence. L.A. chocolatier Jonathan Grahm, Compartes founder with over 200 seasonal flavors under his belt, created the flavors and explained the process of matching flavors, “I brought in these amazing black truffles and I started to play around with different chocolates to blend them with and came up with something incredible. The Macallan 15-year single-malt scotch is another great ingredient on its own, blending it with luscious dark chocolate compliments its flavor.”

Going on to describe a bit of the philosophy behind the blends, as well as his approach to packaging them, Grahm said, “I wanted to create a unique and different chocolate experience where I can blend these interesting flavors together and let them also stand out on their own. Each box is composed of just these four new black collection truffles allowing you to really get a taste of this interesting and special chocolate combinations.”

Compartes Black Collection premieres Black Friday—26 November 2011—and is available as a twenty piece for $55 and ten piece for $30.