At the Fancy Food Show last month I tried an array of the offerings from Droga Chocolates, based her in Southern California.
The most standout among their confections, for me, is their Money on Honey Wildflower Honey Caramels. They’re a square caramel patty covered in Guittard dark chocolate and sprinkled with fleur de sel. But the big thing to note is that the caramel part is made with California wildflower honey and no corn syrup. So the center is just sugar, honey, cream and butter.
They’re made in a gluten free facility with non-gmo ingredients and are Kosher.
I picked up this box of four half-ounce or so caramels at Lolli & Pops. It’s a bit pricey for 2.4 ounces at $8.25.
There’s a lot of packaging. There’s a tray where the caramels sit in fluted cups, which is then inside a box, which is then covered with a sleeve.
Each little piece, though, is quite perfect looking.
They smell of chocolate, with perhaps a floral note of the heavy beeswax scent.
The caramel itself has a good chew, a gentle pull but is stiff enough to hold itself together with the chocolate. The chocolate is bittersweet, not terribly dark or bitter, more on the fruity and woodsy side of things. The caramel has a long lasting chew with a sort of oily nature to it towards the end that honey can impart. The honey flavors are strong and deep, with notes of malt and beeswax.
The sea salt on the top is concentrated kind of at the center, it could be a little better distributed across the surface. It does provide a nice counterpoint to the sweetness of the chocolate and caramel. But generally the chocolate caramel is not that sweet at all. Honey is sweet, for sure, but not as sweet as plain old sugar, it just has a longer ring to it, a longer finish that has a sort of malt and jasmine tea aftertaste to it.
I would definitely buy these again, but probably only for a special occasion because of the price. If there were a smaller single serving size of just one or two caramel, I think I’d be more inclined to indulge.
Related Candies
- Seely Dark Chocolate Mint Patties
- Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Honey Mints
- Bees & Beans Honey Bar
- Zitrone Honig Tic Tac
- Zeke’s Butterscotch
- Honees Honey Filled Drops
- Eat with your Eyes: Honey Caramel
- Gimbal’s Honey Lovers
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