Tony's Chocoloney

Mmm, chocolate.

I'm a firm believer that every morning should begin with some chocolate (alongside a black coffee, after my gummy vitamins).  And that every bored mid-morning moment needs some chocolate.  And, you know, anytime you want a little pick me up ...

Yeah, I love chocolate.  Sometimes I'm all about smooth, creamy milk chocolate, other times I want legit dark and bitter.  Yup, even 100% bars.  Sometimes I like crunchy bits in it, or sometimes filled truffles, or sometimes just pure chocolate.  I like it all, it just really depends on my mood at any given time.

Anyway, I eat a lot of chocolate.  I've tried a zillion varieties.  Recently I tried "Tony's Chocoloney", mostly drawn in by the rather ridiculous name, and, well, massive size of some of the bars.

Tony's has been around since 2006, making a variety of bars, known as "Big Bars" (you'll see why soon), small bars (more normal sized ones), and "Tiny Tony's" (bite sized).   The Big Bars are the largest product range, with 4 milk chocolate varieties (all 32% milk chocolate, with different additions), 4 dark chocolate varieties (ranging from 42%-70%), and a fun sounding raspberry popping candy white chocolate.

I've tried a few, and would gladly try more.  Silly name, and ridiculously large form factor aside, it seemed to be decent enough chocolate.

Tiny Tony's: Dark.

"This bar contains at least 70% cacao. Se-ven-ty! This means we use a lot of cocoa beans. This dark chocolate delicacy is designed for the true chocolate lover."

The first item I tried was just a little Tiny Tony's, a bite sized piece of dark chocolate.  It was ... fine.  A fairly intense dark chocolate.

The form factor was odd though, small but thick, and really quite hard.  I usually appreciate the snap to a dark chocolate, a shiny element, and that was lost with the thicker form.  I'm curious why they use such a thicker form than other chocolate makers.

***.

Big Bar: 42% dark milk chocolate pretzel toffee.

"Pretzel? Yummy. Toffee? Yes please. Dark milk chocolate? Say it ain't so! Put crunchy pretzel pieces with a sweet toffee crunch in dark milk chocolate with 42% cocoa, wrap in a purple wrapper and we have ourselves a new flavor!"

After trying the regular dark chocolate, I moved on to a more interesting selection, with pretzel toffee inside.  I was curious about the "dark milk chocolate" though, 42%, so not nearly as dark as the regular dark, and considered a milk chocolate.  But a darker one.

  

I did like it.  The "Big Bar" lived up to its name - really thick, legit hunk of chocolate.  It had an interesting pattern throughout, so when you broke off a chunk you could get a wide variety of shapes and sizes.

The dark chocolate was good, solid quality, and honestly seemed darker than 42%.  It certainly wasn't a sweet nor creamy chocolate.  I liked crunch from pretzel, but was a bit let down by expecting more of a salty component, and some sweetness from the toffee.

I think due to its size I grew a bit sick of this bar, but, it was fine.

***.

Big Bar: Milk Chocolate Hazelnut.

"This flavor is a perfect combo of 32% Fairtrade milk chocolate and a minimum of 10% hazelnuts. Did you know that we hid a map of Western Africa in our unequally divided bar? We couldn't fit whole hazelnuts into the pieces that represent Togo and Benin! After a very heated debate, we completely and politically incorrectly combined two separate countries into one bigger piece so we could use whole hazelnuts."

Next up, another Big Bar, this time a milk chocolate variety (32%), featuring hazelnuts.

The bar boasts that it has 10% hazelnuts, so I guess I was just unlucky in my first few pieces, because I broke off hunks along the lines, and ... no hazelnuts.  I quickly discovered hazelnuts though, and, as you'd expect, the milk chocolate and hazelnut combo was wonderful (hello, Nutella!).

The milk chocolate was really quite nice, smooth.  High quality.

I really enjoyed this one, absolutely perfect in my morning grogginess with a cup of coffee..

****.