Exclusive (one of a kind) edition of United Airline magazine featuring Chocolodka
Up, Up, And Away
If TrendPointers, Heck Of A Guy reader, market researcher extraordinaire, colleague of DrHGuy, and all around fine fellow, were not the doting father of a fecund daughter dwelling in New York, the ascension of Chocolodka into high level prominence might well have gone undetected by the (generally) flight-adverse and (specifically) United Airline-avoidant Heck Of A Guy blog that is home to that quintessential chocolate vodka concoction.
Thanks to the timely birth of his grandchild in New York, however, DrHGuy’s comrade found himself in a metal shrouded cylinder 35,000 feet above the ground with only the December 2008 edition of Hemispheres, the magazine published by United Airlines for its passengers, for entertainment. And so it was that he noted, and alerted DrHGuy to, “A Perfect Match” by Bill Marsano, 1 an article which begins by examining pairings of varieties of chocolates and wines but climatically expands to also cover other foodstuffs infused with chocolate.
It was in this latter section that the key lines appear:
The Web is gunwales-awash in their blunt-force chocolate-vodka cocktails, candies, cakes, whatnot. Some are recipes requiring real skill (the word ganache has been known to come up.); others reflect hilarious, even Neanderthal simplicity. I’m thinking of the “chocolodka” promulgated by a Greater Chicago blogger called DrHGuy: Chocolate is whacked into bits and bunged holus-bolus into a bottle of vodka that is then-what, matured? in the dishwasher.
While “Neanderthal simplicity” is a disappointingly generic and anthropologically ambiguous categorization that amounts to little more than a cavalierly construed cliché, and one assumes that an experienced food and spirits critic isn’t actually confusing “matured” with “heated and agitated” but is instead indulging in rather imprecise, heavy-handed irony, Mr. Marsano does, nonetheless, adroitly and accurately evoke the essence of the Chocolodka concept.
Although DrHGuy does like to think that he has enhanced the basics with sufficient ceremony to provide gilt without grandiosity such as bespeaks a life lived in quiet ostentation, Chocolodka is , indeed, all about efficaciously and economically combining chocolate and vodka.
The differences in approaches is perhaps best exemplified by comparing the graphic illustrating “A Perfect Match” (the one a few paragraphs above that bears the title of the article) and graphic that accompanied the Chocolodka (shown below).
Choosing one sort of potion or another is a matter of the desired outcome.2
Bill Marsano has long written especially exuberant, practical, and enjoyable pieces about spirits, food, and travel,3 and “A Perfect Match” is no exception. The entire article is available at Hemispheres – December 2008, pages 73-76.
_____________________- “A Perfect Match” by Bill Marsano. United Hemispheres. Pp 73-76 [↩]
- In addition, while one could certainly theorize about the potential for Chocolodka leading to the loss of ones luggage, no documented case has yet been reported. United’s record in this area, on the other hand, is less pristine. Similarly, Heck Of A Guy would welcome a study comparing the respective effectiveness of United and Chocolodka in accomplishing their identical fundamental missions: Getting you where you want to go. [↩]
- DrHGuy read more than a few of Mr. Marsano’s pieces in those halcyon days when flying United was a pleasant and sometimes even enjoyable event [↩]
Neanderthals had dishwashers? Forgive me, I just skimmed your post. Perhaps …