Strung Out on Chocolate

That old saying, “Life is like a box of chocolates - You never know what you’re going to get,” may not be 100% true!

While touring the Van Otis kitchen for the first time, I found stringing to be one of those “Oh, cool!” moments. I had never really looked closely at the chocolates I ate; they usually just go from box to mouth and don’t spend much time in between. What I learned was that as the chocolates come off the enrobing (coating with chocolate) line, they are individually – and still manually – marked according to what’s inside them. For example, “R” for raspberry, “O” for orange, “L” for lemon, “P” for pineapple, is initialed by a gloved hand on each and every piece. Sometimes they’re given colored toppings like the pistachio creams, which are sprinkled with green coconut. (There are too many fillings beginning with “P”, forcing creativity!)

At Van Otis this process is still done by hand. At other companies, where the chocolates are mass produced, equipment is used where a chain is dragged across the chocolates to create a particular design.

Stringing is typically a way of marking the chocolates to indicate what’s inside, and “drizzling” is a way of decorating the chocolates with opposite chocolate types (white on dark, dark on milk, etc.). Drizzling is done by dipping a dowel in melted chocolate and…well…drizzling it over another confection. Drizzling techniques are used to decorate Van Otis’ chocolate dipped pretzels, the Van Krispie and Van Oreos, etc.

Now that I know each Van Otis chocolate was created with individual care, I pause just a millisecond longer before popping it into my mouth. Mmmm…