Earlier on in the month, a couple of friends and I shared my prize of tour tickets on the Inverness Chocolate Tour, run by The Chocolate Place (I had liked and shared a post for them on Facebook and was selected as the lucky winner)
The tour takes around 1.5-2 hours and takes in 5 establishments within the city centre – all within a 5 minute walk of each other. Tickets normally cost £10 each and there are a LOT of opportunities to taste different chocolates, cakes and sweeties.
Our first stop was at the Invernesian Institution – Harry Gow. The origins of the family baking business can be traced back as far as 1898 and it’s a well known brand across the Highlands with 16 stores across Inverness and the Black Isle and beyond! Everything is made from scratch and no shortcuts are taken. See this video here (though I’d love to see how they make their marzipan apples!)
The iconic bake from Harry Gow is a Dream Ring (check out No 5 of this Buzzfeed list) but we tried their chocolate muffin and millionaires shortbread. The muffins were really moist (I don’t normally like them as I often find muffins dry) and there was a lovely thick layer of caramel on sandwiched by shortbread and a chocolate topping.
Our next stop in the tour was the Victorian Market, which houses two places we visited on the tour – first up was The Candy Box which is proper old-style sweetie shop.
We sampled Scottish macaroon (which you may not know has a surprising ingredient!) plus our choices of tablet and home-made chocolates.
Just around the corner, was Story Chocolates. We had a real education into the production of chocolate here from Lucas who is one half of the partnership behind the business here, before having our choice of chocolates. I had a delicious passionfruit and mango filled chocolate. whilst my companions chose mint and peanut-butter respectively. This shop was a new discovery for me (even having walked past it a few times, and it looks a great place to buy some gifts/treats!
Aren’t these hand-made marzipan ‘Nessie’s’ so much fun and a great momento of the Highlands?
Onwards we went to the Inverness Roasting Company and it was time for a brief sit-down and a chat about the relationship between chocolate and coffee, while we enjoyed a taster cup of coffee or hot chocolate alongside more Chocolate Place tasters, this time it was mocha fudge and salted caramel filled hearts.
Finally we headed back to the High Street, and stopped off at Sococo, where we had a plate of churros and dipping chocolate sauces to share. There was no photo of these I’m afraid, as we tucked into these quite heartily!
The Inverness Chocolate Tour is a fab way of finding out more about the production of chocolates, as well as enjoying a lot of tasters!
I was under no obligation to write a post about the tour.
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