Reviews, Chews & How-Tos: Review and Giveaway: Liberty Chocolates

The definition of Liberty is “the pursuit of dreams”. ~ Katrina Coravos, Liberty Chocolates

LibertyChocolates, a small business out of Montpelier, Vermont, packs a whole lot of love and dedication into their chocolate bars!

All of their organic and natural ingredients are chosen with passion fueling their decisions. What they don’t get locally, they definitely search out the highest quality! Their cacao beans are hand picked and processed in Peru, while the raw honey used to sweeten the bars comes from local bee farmers. Each chocolate bar is soy free as well as dairy free.

For the next month, you can purchase a 9 ct box in your choice of the following flavors: Dark Chocolate, Acai & Blueberry, Almond & Coconut, Cherry Pomegranate, Coffee, Maple, Hot Pepper, Passion fruit & lemon, Peppermint, Himalayan Salt, Strawberry, and Vanilla & Rose. Each box retails for $36.30 + $5.70 US shipping, including a custom mixed variety box.

Sadly, I say for the next month because only the four flavors I am reviewing are sticking around! However, don’t be alarmed, for each flavor going away, an even more mouthwatering flavor is taking its place! Liberty Chocolate also sells 9 count single flavor boxes of each of their varieties.

Mmm.....choooocolate!

Being pregnant, you can only imagine how excited I was for the chocolate to arrive! Unfortunately we had a little hiccup with the first shipment. The chocolates, sent in a double envelope, arrived less than…solid. I live in the middle of the Mojave Desert where much of the summer experiences 3 digit temperatures.

Oops! But, you know, only fake chocolate doesn't melt when it's 115F.

Our mailbox is a metal communal key-box, not right outside of my house. Knowing this was on the way, I diligently checked the mail around the time it usually runs, but alas, they still arrived melted.

Taking them out of the outer envelope, the inner packaging had chocolate seeping through, and I wasn’t sure what I was about to open.

Luckily the bars remained in their wrappers, just in liquid form, so I was able to stick them in the freezer. However, I contacted Liberty Chocolates right away to alert them, as I didn’t want to review them as is, since flavors can certainly be compromised in this way. Also, as you can see, the foil was now melted into bar, making it hard to unwrap.

They were super nice, put another package in the mail, with extra precautions, and assured me they were amping their shipping practices to ensure that no other customer experienced this! That showed me that they really had customers and the quality of their product as first priority.

The second package arrived in much better form. Inside of heavy duty mailing envelope was a reflective bubble wrap package with the chocolates and an icepack. The chocolates were solid, as should be!

Perfectly packaged to survive a summer delivery!

So now to get tasting—

The first one I tried was Almond and Coconut. The package tells a little more of the process of making these magical heaven bars, “The beans are harvested, aged and laid on banana leaves to dry in the sun on small farms in Peru.”

This bar smells so darn tasty as soon as you unwrap it. It is velvety and rich, and I love the slight crunch of the almond and coconuts through out each bite. I’m glad this one is sticking around!

The next one I indulged in was the Coffee. I’ll admit, this one isn’t my favorite, but that is purely due to my own taste preferences. Even so, I loved the grittiness of the coffee beans throughout. My husband really enjoyed this bar. On this outer packaging, I learned that they teamed up with a company called Birds & Beans (a Canadian bird-friendly coffee roaster) for these silky flavorful chocolates.

Next up was the Dark chocolate bar! This gem was interesting. I’m still only kind of a grown up, so dark chocolate is still new to me. I’m learning to love it, but slightly bored by it at the same time. Liberty Chocolate's Dark Chocolate bar is melt-in-your-mouth smooth, and the bitterness of the 85% Cacao comes across as almost a spicy note for a second in my mind. My and my husband both really enjoyed this, but I couldn’t eat more than a few small bites at once.

Saving the one I looked forward to the most for last, I tried the Pomegranate Cherry. I love fruit flavors with chocolate. It was a more subtle taste than I would have liked, but the texture was amazing! It was like biting into soft fudge.

Also, as you notice, this bar’s wrapper looks slightly different. Instead of just saying ‘Honey Sweetened from Vermont’ on the bottom of the wrapper, it says Moon Time Chocolates.

This is indicative of the fact that it was created to support various woman-centered organizations. A portion of precedes go towards the making of the powerful documentary ‘Things We Don’t Talk About-Healing Narratives from the Red Tent.’

“This bar is dedicated to all women who are choosing to stand in their power and bring fort their work. We honor you, we love you, and we stand beside you.”

It is clear that this is near and dear to the company’s heart.

Many of the other Liberty Chocolate have nonprofit organizations similarly attached to them, each empowering women and children in some way, making this chocolate not only healthy and delicious, but helpful as well.

I was honored to try all of these, and can’t wait for the new flavors to arrive next month! Here’s what is on the way: Banana Peanut Butter, Heady Topper Caramel and Salted Pretzels, Coconut Caramel and Salt, Chai Espresso, and Maple Ginger Snap!

Each one of these has a local business behind it supplying the ingredients. How delicious do those sound?! (Hrm, a part 2 review?) Can’t wait to taste them, myself.

I hope you give this wonderful business a try, and love the product as much as I do. Two of our readers will have a free opportunity to do just that!

LibertyChocolate is offering TWO of our readers a 9ct variety box of their current offerings. This Giveaway is open to US residents only and will close just before midnight, August 21.

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment in this entry as instructed by the Rafflecopter, then leave the name you commented under and your email in the box in the Rafflecopter entry. (This lets us contact you if you win!) This will open up additional optional entrys to increase your odds of winning. Good luck, everyone!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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