TCHO Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

This year, my husband and I celebrated our anniversary in Orlando, Florida, or more specifically, at Disney World and Universal Studios. This is not the first anniversary we've celebrated there, and we did our honeymoon there as well, so I guess you could say we're those people. But even those people have their limits, and after 3 days at the parks, we needed a break from the magic.

After a little searching on Yelp, we settled on the World of Chocolate Museum and Cafe. We arrived just in time for the first tour of the day, and the tour guide David was amusing. The admission included a little history on the cultivation and production of chocolate, some massive chocolate sculptures, and finally, a chocolate tasting of about 10 different bars ranging in cocoa content and retail value. If you can't make the tour, this place is at least worth a visit for the impressive array of chocolate bars and truffles in the shop.

Even though the shop carried many of my favorite brands, I wanted to try something new, and the spectacular TCHO packaging and unique flavors caught my eye. I bought a couple flavors, but I'll start with Strawberry Rhubarb Pie. My mom makes a tasty pie, so the tagline, "Like your mom made - then plunged into milk chocolate!" really spoke to me. Sorry that I spazzed and forgot to take a picture of the bar before I devoured it, but that should tell you something!

The chocolate was nice and thick and had a good snap when broken. I could see the chunks of real strawberry and tiny pieces of crust inside the milk chocolate. Right away, it was tart like rhubarb, and then I could taste the sweet, freeze-dried strawberries. The fruit was well-balanced by the subtly sweet, slightly sticky milk chocolate. The melt was clean, leaving real fruit pulp and seeds behind for a great, tart finish. The strawberry was definitely the main player here in terms of taste and texture, while the rhubarb only adds an extra sour kick. I didn't get much of a sense of the crust at all. Still, this was a standout bar, and fans of fruity chocolate will definitely appreciate it!

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TCHO website

DRY Soda Rhubarb

I've never been a big soda drinker, but every now and then I enjoy it. New and different sodas are especially exciting, so this rhubarb soda sounded too good to resist. DRY Soda wasn't a company I had heard of, and the bottle was a little pricey, but it did have a lot of things going for it.

This soda was all natural, and made with cane sugar (which almost always makes for a higher price, unfortunately). The whole bottle was 60 calories and 16 grams of sugar. I can't remember how much one bottle cost at the grocery store, but a 12 pack sells for $19 US on the DRY Soda website.

The soda smells just like how it tastes. It tastes like rhubarb, with a lot of tartness and a hint of bitterness, counterbalanced with a little sweetness. It was very dry, but didn't taste watered down like I was afraid it would. The aftertaste was nice, too, a bit sweet.

It reminded me of something, and it was halfway through the bottle when I figured it out. It really reminded me of Lotte Koume plum hard candies, which have a bitter coating, followed by a sweet plum candy shell, and finally a gummy plum center. I wouldn't have thought to compare Japanese plums to rhubarb, but they do have some similar qualities (tartness, subtle sweetness).

I really enjoyed this soda, but because of the price and the complex flavor, I wouldn't want to drink it often. While I drank this, my husband had the kumquat flavor, which was also tasty. As an occasional treat, I definitely recommend this soda.

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DRY Soda website