Hotel Chocolat Tasting Club: Milk & Dark

This review condenses 3 boxes of Hotel Chocolat's Tasting Club into one. Two 'Milk' boxes and one 'Dark'. Below are my thoughts, mainly in note form, of the chocolates I received. There were a few of the same chocolates across two of the boxes (I think 5 in total?) and some chocolates were in two different coatings (I typically favoured the version that was NOT in dark)

tl;dr I would have the Milk selection box over the Dark any day, but wish the Milk had included alcoholic chocolates too! - I have had better quality chocolates, but a fun experience nonetheless. 78 chocolates + 18 batons!

Fruity

Cranberry Three Way: taste is okay, you get a nice zing of cranberry once during the middle taste

Peach Truffle: peachy flavour should not be with chocolate, please, it reminds me too much of body scrub

Orange Heart: in dark: no no no no. In milk it was more tolerable, but still no

Raspberry Smoothie: overly sweet filling, almost a comical raspberry flavour! But the milk chocolate finished nicely

Blackcurrant Boost: in white chocolate it was very sweet and in dark it tasted very continental

Blood Orange Truffle: this one was really good considering it's orange. It was like Seville orange/marmalade. I like this one- kinda biter, so it was nice with the milk chocolate

Fortified

Appleton's Rum: not very powerful rum but the rummy flavour is certainly there. It's quite nice but I'd have preferred it to be sharper. Still good though

Perfect Pear: Poire William liqueur. I don't actually like pears, unless it's a really hard pear that hardly tastes of pear. So pear flavour = not for me

Cognac Truffle: bangin'

Nutty

Praline Crisp: feuilletine crunches. I much preferred the milk chocolate version. It was nice and rich tasting, maybe it was the "buttery pastry"

Smooth Criminal: caramel chocolate: beautiful, beautiful gianduja (65% hazelnuts!). This was great

Supermilk Fruit & Nut: nice chewy raisins, crunch of the cashews, a slight bitter taste of the Supermilk. I'd have preferred a little more sweetness (like Hotel Chocolat's 50% milk chocolate)

Salted Praline Caramel: very thick, nice taste, preferred it in the milk coating. Nice

Nutty Caramel: cheesy caramel flavour, I noticed this when I first had this chocolate last year. This is odd

Walnut & Vanilla: nib crunch, subtle walnut flavour amongst the praline flavour

Almond Latte: it hadn't enough coffee, the almond wasn't very complementary

Salted Pistachio Praline: I recommend this one, though it was only okay to me I know others would enjoy it! It reminds me of being on holiday i.e parents buying a bag of salted pistachios for nibbles at night, either in the apartment/the balcony or on the beach

Butterscotch & Pecan: this was very nice, butterscotch flavour (richer than toffee), pecans

Dessert inspired

Choc Chip Cookie: this one is good, more so the cookie with the chocolate than the whole hazelnuts!

Sticky Rice & Mango: very tropical, however creamy tropicalness isn't a flavour I like, but the milk chocolate version was better - still not for me

Pecan Brownie: a bananary taste, then pecan and now it becomes a maple, pecan banana pie. I don't like the metallic nib taste, but overall it is very nice!

Billionarie's Shortbread: caramel flavour, hazelnut flavour, really good, super!

Treacle Tart: cheesy caramel, golden syrup flavour, more like a caramel shortbread, of which are never good

Turkish Coffee Dessert: cardamom coffee, subtle honey - very middle eastern (a culture I love), very creamy and warming. I like the coffee with chocolate but not the overall flavour

Other

Soft Caramel: good caramel flow, but slight funny flavour

Trinidad 68% & Apricot: smokey chocolate, woah! That Trindadian cacao. Apricot ganache, not so keen. So just eating the chocolate coating, discarding the ganache, was the way to do this one

Macho-Milk Caramel: liquid, little cheesy, lovely caramel

Ecuador 63% Milk Truffle: luscious ganache texture, very creamy, more complex than plain chocolate flavour

The batons: 50% Milk: delicious, creamy! 75% Peru Milk: nice! Again very creamy. Acticoa: the darkest tasting one. I liked the 50% milk best

The ones I LOVED: Billionaire's Shortbread, Smooth Criminal, Cognac, Choc Chip Cookie and Praline Crisp in milk chocolate!