Father’s Day is Sunday, June 17th so I thought I’d throw something out there for the chocolate lovin’ fathers of America.

I had the opportunity this week to try two different personalized chocolate message services. They’re both great, if a little expensive for shipping because of the heat in summer months. But the originality can’t be beat. It’s like an edible greeting card.

First up is Chocotelegram. Based in Toronto, Chocotelegram was actually founded in Europe. You can order from their pre-fab messages or have them typeset your message using their letter picker. You can even decorate the blank spaces with icons (stars, smileys, trees, hearts & clovers).

The chocolate is made by Barry Calebaut. Each little square is about a third of an ounce, making a whole tray of 21 squares about 7 ounces. I only tried the milk and found it very creamy, if a little sweet, but super-smooth and satisfying. The package sent, as shown, is only $17 plus shipping. There are lots of options on their website, including an upgraded box and larger letter arrays. I really liked the molding on the letters, it was crisp, attractive and legible.

The second company that contacted me last week was ABChocolates that makes the Chocolate Dispatch. The Dispatch has a wonderful design flair, from the exterior packaging (wrapped in some corrugated paper with a seal) down to the sassy wooden box with the message printed right on the front in true telegram style. Even when the chocolate is gone, the message lives on.

Under the sliding top the chocolates are held firmly in place with foam underneath and some waxed paper filler on top. Pull that off and you get a personalized chocolate message. Each letter weighs a little less than a third of an ounce giving the box of 32 a net weight of 9.5-10 ounces . The letters are a little more homespun feeling than Chocotelegram’s. They’re a combination of white chocolate letters on a dark or milk chocolate square. The white is, you know, white chocolate. The milk is nice, creamy and not too sweet with a strong milky component. The dark is good, if a little grainy sometimes (but only as a counterpoint to the silkier/stickier milk chocolate).

While Chocolate Dispatch only comes in two sizes, they offer a lot of customized options with different labels on the front (Birthday Dispatch, Get Well Dispatch, Valentine Dispatch, etc.) which would mean that you could send out several of these over the course of the year and the boxes would all be keepsakes.

There’s a breakdown listed below. I liked both of the products a lot, though I don’t know that many people that I’d send something like this to. (Here’s a hint though, if you’re doing a wedding, see if you can do initials. “C & M” in little three character boxes, that’d be so cute!) Chocotelegram had the best tasting chocolate, but I really liked the box and whole top-to-bottom design aesthetic of Chocolate Dispatch. If you’re a mom helping your kid pick out their gift to dad, the letter-picking interface is a fun experience all on its own. (Chocotelegram has one too, but it’s just not quite as enjoyable.)

I give both services a solid 7 out of 10.

Chiclets are my absolute favorite gum of all time. I love the classic white gum. It’s not easy to find any longer, I usually pick up six packs at the 99 Cent Only Store. They used to come in a lot of flavors, Spearmint and Fruit and if I’m not crazy, I think there was a Cinnamon at one time. The boxes are clean and feature nicely packed little candy-coated tile-like pieces of gum. Crunchy, flavorful ... easy to share. No messy wrappers.

At one time the Fruit Chiclets were different flavors, but eventually all the colors became the familiar fruit flavor (kind of like JuicyFruit). On rare occasions I also see the Tiny Size Chiclets at the store. Tiny Size are, well, just adorable. They the perfect size to offer to your Barbie doll. You know, if she’s a gum chewer ... maybe trying to break a smoking habit.

I stopped at the CVS to pick up some toothpaste the other day after work and spotted these at the checkout. I couldn’t resist. Sure, I had a six pack of Peppermint at home, but I hadn’t had the Tiny Size in years and that Gold Mine Gum was still pretty fresh in my mind.

While the regular pack boasts 12 pieces, which is pretty much six portions, the Tiny Size is only one half of an ounce.

For me this amounted to about three portions. The chew is satisfyingly crunchy, but not as grainy as the larger Chiclets can be. The fruit flavor is pleasant. A little bland and of course doesn’t last very long.

As cute as these little freaks are, I don’t think I’m going to buy them again, unless I’m working on some sort of candy craft project. The colors are unusual, the package seems to indicate that they’re rather neon tinted, in reality they’re just bright.

Peppermint Chiclets were introduced by the Fleer company in 1906. Fleer was later swallowed up by Warner Lambert in 1962, also the year that the Tiny Size was introduced. Warner Lambert sold their gum concerns to Cadbury Adams in 2000. Chiclets are still made with sugar but are manufactured in Colombia.

I don’t usually buy into the stories behind candy, because a story is great but doesn’t amount to much once you put the candy in your mouth. It’s fun to read them on the package insert, you know, while munching away. But the story on Nutpatch Nougats is pretty good.

Nutpatch Nougat is made by John Zito, using natural ingredients and his own, locally grown hazelnuts and we have another local product, Bumnuts’ Free Range Eggs that come from Nicholls Rivulet Organic Food Farm on the island of Tasmania in Australia.

That’s some serious local food going on there ... I’m guessing the only thing that’s not local is the little edible rice paper wrapping.

I first tried Nutpatch in January at the Fancy Food Show at a booth run by Tassie Naturals that sells lots of other wonderful Tasmanian sweets, like Leatherwood Honey. But I was there for the classic nougat and Larry at Tassie Naturals was actually waiting for me. What I tasted back in January were samples, just slices from the large bar that they sell, wrapped in plain clear cellophane. Hey, I didn’t need any fancy wrappings.

But what I did need was another fix. So I emailed Larry back in March ... nope, it’s not ready yet. I had to distract myself with other things for a while.

So I wait ... and wait ... to hear back from Larry that he was ready to start selling Nutpatch Nougat in the United States. Then, just after Memorial Day I got the good news ... oh, it was not only good that they were ready to start selling but because the package changed, he insisted on sending me new samples. (Okay, insisted is strong, he said he would send them and I said, “Yay!”)

Almond Nougat - this nougat doesn’t have honey notes, no, it tastes just like honey. Like I’ve put honeycomb in my mouth, honeycomb studded with almonds. Sweet, mellow honey and almonds. A soft bite, good crunchy nuts and a smooth melt on the tongue with that crazy, crazy honey.

Hazelnut Nougat - this smells like hazelnut. And it made me realize that hazelnuts smell like freshly cut fruit woods. Oh, and then there’s the honey. It’s sweet and has that beeswax scent. Sweet, but not overwhelming. The whole thing tastes toasty. It’s sweet, but not throat-burningly. It feels like a treat, but it doesn’t have that sugar let-down later, probably because of the high nut content and all that protein.

There are a lot of nuts in these. Some nougats are excited to proclaim 25-40% nut content. Nutpatch Nougat is about 60% nuts by weight. Oh, and the number two ingredient on the list is not sugar ... it’s honey!

My biggest complaint here is that the nougat is packaged in this huge bar. At 5.6 ounces, it’s pretty big ...  think two sticks of butter. It’s a little vexing to slice and of course if I wanted to just pop this in my picnic I have to bring a knife of pre-slice it. The Nougat de Montelimar at least can be pulled apart or bitten off easily. (Of course the Nougat de Montelimar is $3.45 an ounce and Nutpatch is $1.75 an ounce ... I think I can be troubled to pre-slice.)

Chocolate Covered Nougat Bars - these are just gorgeous little unassuming bars ... seriously, who knows what’s in there just by looking?

While I was thinking that the bars would be the same as the nougat, the nougat seems different just by being molded into the chocolate bar. I don’t know if it’s because it’s been sealed from any oxidation or because the chocolate is just so thick and fragrant, but this bar is definitely more about the chocolate.

The little fingers of nougat are studded with hazelnuts. The bottom layer has the typical rice paper wafer, but the tops and sides don’t. The chocolate is overpowering ... not that that’s a bad thing. It’s very tasy dark Callebaut. But it does overpower the honey notes for me. But for what it takes away it brings something else that’s wonderful, an intense creaminess and extra woody flavors that boost the nuts. The hazelnuts definitely seemed stronger here.

As chocolate covered nougats go, this is pretty much at the top of my list, but if I had to pick ... if you put a plate in front of me that had these bars or a selection of the Holiday Nougat from Valerie Confections, I might go with Valerie’s, I just like the balance of the nougat and chocolate and of course the citrus boost. Of course the Holiday Nougat isn’t available right now ... so Nutpatch would satisfy an off-season jones. (No one is actually selling the Nutpatch Chocolate Bars yet, so it’s all hypothetical.)

More reading on Nutpatch Nougats: Other Nougat is Not a Patch on This. Where to buy? Right now you can order online at Natural Food Finds. I imagine since this is a very small operation, the nougat will be in short supply, so order it when they have it if you’re interested.

UPDATE 06/15/2007: Through some strange snafu, I quoted a price from the Natural Food Finds that wasn’t quite final. I said it’s $9.89 when in reality it’s now selling for $14.95 ... still a much better deal than most other fine European-style nougats (certainly still beating the Soubeyran). The good news is that Natural Food Find WILL give Candy Blog readers a $1.50 off until July 11, 2007. Just enter the coupon code CBJUN11 if you order to get the special reduced price deal. My apologies for any confusion to anyone.

No word yet on anyone selling the chocolate covered nougat bars.

After the reminder of how great Storck Chocolate Riesen are last week, I was happily educated that Storck makes a vanilla caramel.

And I was delightedly happy to find that the Dollar Tree carries Werther’s Original Chewy Caramels. So I left with a sassy little bag of them. I’d never had them before, but knowing the Riesen and the Werther’s Original Hard Candies, I thought they had to be good. Of course after I bought them and took the picture I started seeing them everywhere ... either Storck made a huge delivery to Southern California or I’ve been comfortably numb in my chocolate caramel bliss for a long time.

Taking them out of the wrapper they don’t look much different from Brach’s caramels or even Kraft’s. The little flat-sided rods are kind of uneven. At first they’re pretty hard, and a firm chew can be exhausting. But a few moments in a warm mouth (especially after coffee) and they softened up beautifully.

The chew is smooth and buttery with a good caramel taste and creamy consistency. It stays smooth all the way to the end, which is the mark of a caramel over a taffy or chew that will become grainy or just up and dissolve.

I wasn’t as keen on these as the Chocolate Riesen, part of it may be that the chocolate caramels are one of the few candies that seems to match up to the pictures on the wrapper, and the Werther’s Original Chewy Caramels just looked a little more weathered and worn than the images on the wrapper. I ate them all, but it took me a week instead of two days with chocolate version. They’re probably a better hot weather candy to keep on hand ... not that it’s been hot in Los Angeles in the past month or so.

Australia has not been left out of the KitKat craze, but they’re a little harder to get a hold of. One of my co-workers happens to be married to an Aussie, so on his last trip to visit family I gave him some bucks and asked for anything that caught his fancy (knowing me of course). Some I just ate, but these I thought I’d at least share a little about.

KitKat Temptations: Coconut Eclair: The big dome over the narrow little pair of wafers is filled with a sweet and mildly coconutty cream. The cream is kind of a cross between the inside of a York Peppermint Pattie and a truffle. Not quite smooth, not quite buttery, but not as crumbly as the fondant of a York.

The cookies don’t even take a back seat here, they’re on a trailer being towed behind. One of those shocks that would greet you as you were looking to change lanes and saw that the Coconut Eclair had passed you and you were trying to get out from behind some mollasses Slo-Poke and didn’t realize that they had that wafer cookie trailer bouncing along behind, without lights or any of those red dangly flags. Then you slow down and smack your own forhead and say, DUH! It’s a KitKat!

KitKat Temptations: Hazelnut Praline: This one smelled kind of like maple, but perhaps pecan, if we’re talking about nuts. I know Australia is a half a world away, but I also know they grow hazelnuts, so I can’t quite figure out the lame taste on this one. It’s all very sweet. The nutty cream center is rather like Nutella, but lacks that nutty punch. Instead it’s flavored like nuts, but doesn’t taste like them ... ya know? There are a few little crushed nuts in there (as there should be, the picture on the wrapper illustrates them) but they just didn’t strike me as hazelnuts. They could have been almonds.

Yeah, I’m just not getting the KitKat vibe here. KitKats are all about the wafers, grainy cream and chocolate. Anything added is great, but don’t muck with the basics.

You may have tempted me once, but you’ll not snare me again.