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Bean to Barstool Redux: Vintage but still relevant conversations from the archives without all the extra narration. Just classic interviews from really cool people in craft chocolate, craft beer, and other food and beverage fields. In this edition, we talk with Max Gandy, perhaps better known in the craft chocolate world as Dame Cacao. Max was one of the first chocolate educators I started following on Instagram many years ago now when I was first getting into the scene. With her Dame Cacao website and various podcasts over the years, she’s been a calm and knowledgeable voice within craft chocolate for nearly a decade now. She’s also incredibly well traveled, and has spent time at many cacao origins.  In our conversation, we discussed her journey within craft chocolate, the way going to origin can change our perspectives on chocolate, and what has to happen for the general public to come around to craft chocolate. We also spent some time discussing cacao liquors and other alcoholic beverages made by farmers in different regions. Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.

In this short bonus episode of Bean to Barstool, we'll hear from Kelly Campos of Dark Matter Coffee and Sleep Walk Chocolate in Chicago. Kelly talks all about the barrel-aged beer chocolate bars Sleep Walk has made in collaboration with breweries like Half Acre and Revolution. Enjoy! You can learn more about Sleep Walk Chocolate here. You can listen to Kelly discuss Sleep Walk's mezcal-infused bar in this episode. Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.

I just got back from a weekend in Seattle for the Northwest Chocolate Festival, and want to share my thoughts from the experience. Here are my takeaways from the Unconference, the trends on the festival floor, my favorite experiences in this beautiful city, and the thoughts I was left with as I returned from the show. If you attended NW Chocolate this year, I'd love to hear your own takeaways! Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.

Bean to Barstool Redux: Vintage but still relevant conversations from the archives without all the extra narration. Just classic interviews from really cool people in craft chocolate, craft beer, and other food and beverage fields. In this edition, we talk with Martyn O'Dare of Firetree Chocolate in the UK. Firetree has been making single origin dark chocolate from primarily Pacific island origins since launching in 2018, and they’re among my favorite single origin makers. As much as I love their complex bars, I also love their beautiful packaging, with its swirling colors and gold etching. Their motto is Rich Volcanic Chocolate, referencing the volcanic soil of the islands where their cacao is grown. Martyn O’Dare talks about making chocolate that respects the nuances of each cacao origin and the farmers who grew it, and about how their elegant packaging helps to tell those stories.  Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.

Welcome to Bean to Barstool Bite Sized, where we spend about 5 minutes on a specific topic in craft beer, craft chocolate, or artisan drinks. Today we're talking with David Herrick of Foundry Chocolate in New Zealand. David shares with us the thought and intention behind their elegant packaging design. Enjoy! You can listen to the entire episode this clip is from here. You can learn more about Foundry Chocolate here. Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.

Here's the entire Collaboration for Chocolate Makers series in one place!  While craft chocolate makers periodically partner with breweries and coffee roasters, examples of collaboration in the industry remain pretty limited. That's a shame, because collaboration offers amazing opportunity to growing your chocolate business. In this supercut of the Collaboration series from early 2026, we walk through different types of possible collaborations and how craft chocolate makers should go about them. We discuss: - Why you should consider collaborating with other businesses - Things to consider before beginning a collaboration - Ideas for collaborating with alcoholic beverage producers - Ideas for collaborating with other craft chocolate makers - Creative, unexpected collaboration ideas - Estelle Tracy's insights on her own collaboration experience Collaboration for Chocolate Makers series: Podcast Episodes Why Do It, and General Considerations Collaborating with Beverage Alcohol Producers Collaborating with Other Craft Chocolate Makers Creative Collaborations to Consider Collaboration Case Study: Estelle Tracy on working with Craft Chocolate Makers Blog Posts Why It’s Worth It, and Things To Consider Collaborating with Beverage Alcohol Producers, and Drinks-Based Collabs Chocolate-Based Collabs with Beverage Alcohol Producers Collaborating with Other Craft Chocolate Makers Creative Collaborations to Consider Collaboration Case Study: Estelle Tracy on working with Craft Chocolate Makers Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.

Bean to Barstool Redux: Vintage but still relevant conversations from the archives without all the extra narration. Just classic interviews from really cool people in craft chocolate, craft beer, and other food and beverage fields. In this edition, we talk with Arron Liu of Chocobien in Hong Kong. Chocobien is a bean to bar chocolate company that produces many truly unique bars that employ flavors and ingredients from other artisan food and beverage segments, including beer, whiskey, coffee, sake, tea, and more.  Arron talks about the ideas behind these bars, the partnerships and processes that went into their development, and the satisfaction this curious and creative maker finds in achieving the flavors he could only hold in his imagination at the start of each experiment. Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.

Welcome to Bean to Barstool Bite Sized, where we spend about 5 minutes on a specific topic in craft beer, craft chocolate, or artisan drinks. Today we're talking with Caroline Houghton of Carobeans in St. Paul, Minnesota. Caroline talks about how her community came together to protect their neighbors during the immigration raids earlier this year, and the ICE Melter bar she creates to raise awareness and funds for immigrant justice. Enjoy! You can learn more about Carobeans here, and find the ICE Melter bar here. Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.

It’s appropriate we call alcoholic drinks spirits. Fermented beverages carry with them the traditions of their homelands and the essence of their agricultural ingredients, and they’ve been used for millennia to both grieve and celebrate, to ease tensions, to bond relationships, to preserve the bounty of a harvest, to mark our hopes for the same next year. Bean to Barstool has been covering the intersections of craft chocolate with artisan drinks for about six years now. We’ve looked at countless chocolate makers who have used alcoholic drinks to infuse flavor into their bars. By far the most common drinks used for this are beer and whiskey, with many substyles of each represented.  Over the last couple years however, I’ve noticed a somewhat unexpected spirit growing more and more common. Mezcal. Mexican craft chocolate makers like Cuna de Piedra, Metiche, and others have led the way in this, and an increasing number of American craft makers have caught on. Mezcal bars are no longer a curiosity. They’re a way of carrying the flavors of this traditional Mexican spirit to new audiences, and a way of telling stories that might get missed otherwise.  Today, we’re going to talk all about the growing segment of mezcal-infused craft chocolate. I reached out to Cuna de Piedra for this episode, and unfortunately, their production schedule did not allow time for an interview before this episode needed to be assembled. I want to apologize that I wasn’t able to get a Mexican craft maker lined up for this episode, as it’s difficult to tell the story of mezcal chocolate without them. I will continue working to get something scheduled, and hopefully we’ll be able to learn from these makers in future episodes. Today, we’re talking all things Mezcal in craft chocolate! Let's introduce our guests: Lou Bank, host of the Agave Road Trip podcast, and the founder of S.A.C.R.E.D. Agave, an organization that works to improve lives in the rural Mexican communities where heritage agave spirits are made. Kelly Campos, director of quality control at Chicago’s popular Dark Matter Coffee, and their craft chocolate spinoff, Sleep Walk Chocolate. Eric Parkes, owner and chocolate maker at Somerville Chocolate. You can listen to a previous episode with Eric here to hear her talk about his collabs with Aeronaut Brewing. Caroline Houghton, owner and chocolate maker at Carobeans. Hans Westerink, owner at Violet Sky Chocolate. You can listen to a previous episode with Hans here to hear him talk about roasting cacao and coffee. Shay Pal, craft chocolate and spirits enthusiast. You can listen to a previous episode with Shay here to hear her talk about pairing chocolate and spirits. Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.

Bean to Barstool Redux: Vintage but still relevant conversations from the archives without all the extra narration. Just classic interviews from really cool people in craft chocolate, craft beer, and other food and beverage fields. In this edition, we talk with Arcelia Gallardo of Mission Chocolate in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Arcelia has taken a long and winding road to making world class chocolate in Brazil, and as she’ll explain, her own journey is interwoven with the growth of the cacao industry and bean to bar chocolate scene in Brazil over the last decade. Arcelia also talks about the exciting craft beer scene in Brazil right now, and its relationship to cacao. Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.

Welcome to Bean to Barstool Bite Sized, where we spend about 5 minutes on a specific topic in craft beer, craft chocolate, or artisan drinks. Today we're talking with Allo Gilinsky and Rachek Benkowski of the Craft Connections Beverage Education Summit. Allo and Rachel share with us some thoughts about how to make beer education approachable for consumers. Enjoy! You can listen to the entire episode this clip is from here. You can learn more about Craft Connections here. Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.

It's time for the final episode in our Media series! In this episode, David and Melinda talk through a range of topics to conclude the Media Relations for Craft Chocolate Makers series. They discuss: - Common pitfalls companies make in media relations (or let hold them back from even starting) - Crisis communications - what it means, and things to think about now before you need to later - What to do after you get media coverage - Action items to get you started on your media relations path.  Media relations doesn't have to be scary, but it is super important, so listen in and David and Melinda share their final thoughts about Media Relations for Craft Chocolate Makers! David's been a full time food and beverage journalist for about a decade now and Melinda Guerra has been a freelance PR professional helping brands tell their stories and connect with media for even longer than that. In this series, they share what they’ve learned over their careers to help craft chocolate companies of any size identify their stories, communicate them to media members and outlets, gain new customers, and keep the ones you have curious. Media Relations for Craft Chocolate Makers series: Podcast Episodes Why You Need a Media Plan Identify Your Company's Stories How to Build and Manage a Media List All About Press Releases How to Maintain Media Relationships and Communicate New Stories How to Get Started, and Common Pitfalls Blog Posts Why You Need a Media Plan How to Identify Your Stories How to Build a Media List Adding Industry and Unexpected Outlets to your Media List How to Write and Send a Press Release How to Maintain Media Relationships and Communicate New Stories Crisis Communications What to Do After You Get Media Coverage Common Pitfalls, and Easy Steps for Getting Started Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.

Welcome to Bean to Barstool Bite Sized, where we spend about 5 minutes on a specific topic in craft beer, craft chocolate, or artisan drinks. Today we're talking with David Herrick of Foundry Chocolate in New Zealand. David tells us the story behind their esteemed Whisky bars released annually. Enjoy! You can listen to the entire episode this clip is from here. You can learn more about Foundry Chocolate here. Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.

Once you've established a line of communication with a media member, how do you maintain that relationship and communicate new story ideas to them? That's what we're going to talk about in this new episode in Bean to Barstool's Media Relations for Craft Chocolate Makers series! In part 5 today, food and beverage journalist David Nilsen talks how to maintain communication with members of the media, how to communicate story ideas in an informal but helpful way, how stories come together on the freelance journalism side, and much more. David's been a full time food and beverage journalist for about a decade now and Melinda Guerra has been a freelance PR professional helping brands tell their stories and connect with media for even longer than that. In this series, they share what they’ve learned over their careers to help craft chocolate companies of any size identify their stories, communicate them to media members and outlets, gain new customers, and keep the ones you have curious. Media Relations for Craft Chocolate Makers series: Podcast Episodes Why You Need a Media Plan Identify Your Company's Stories How to Build and Manage a Media List All About Press Releases How to Maintain Media Relationships and Communicate New Stories How to Get Started, and Common Pitfalls Blog Posts Why You Need a Media Plan How to Identify Your Stories How to Build a Media List Adding Industry and Unexpected Outlets to your Media List How to Write and Send a Press Release How to Maintain Media Relationships and Communicate New Stories Crisis Communications What to Do After You Get Media Coverage Common Pitfalls, and Easy Steps for Getting Started Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.

Craft beverage education is one of my passions, and I really believe that the more people learn about their favorite drinks, the more they’re able to enjoy them. Allo Gilinsky and Rachel Benkowski definitely agree. I first met this pair at last summer’s Crafted For Action conference in Atlanta, where they were co-presenting an education tasting. Since then, they’re announced the inaugural Craft Connections Beverage Education Summit taking place in early 2027, an event that will bring together craft beer professionals for conversations and presentations around how we can better provide useful, approachable education for both staff and consumers.  I recently sat down with Allo and Rachel to talk all about the philosophy and passion behind the Summit, why beverage education is so important, and how we can provide actionable tools for staff and consumers without overwhelming or talking over them.  You can learn more about the Summit, and find their social media links, on the event website.  You can listen to the previous episode with Master Cicerone Scott Fielder and Advanced Cicerone Chris Crowe mentioned in our conversation here. Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media! Instagram Facebook Pinterest Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.