Impact
A pimp of cacáo to personify the Maximón myth. As told by the great Mayanist Simon Martin, the Maximón hangs in Highland Guatemala sporting a wide-brimmed fedora, tailored suits, walking cane & no doubt a cigar too. When Jesus dies & hides during Holy Week, Maximón slides in to take his place, setting up shop at the altar, accepting liquor, money, bud, cacáo (plus some girls, no?) during the offertory hymn. (For Aztec re-enactors, think of him as a kind of progenitor for Toxcatl – the Meso-American Idol.)
On Easter he meets the real jefe (chief) when the risen JC smites this imposter in ceremonial combat. Disrobed & inarticulate, Maximón gets banished.
Like he, this bar could use some God-smack to strip the sugar, vanilla & lecithin off which ironically reduce it to a dartboard played in Q’umarkaj – the archaic Mayan settlement that means ‘place of the rotten cane’... where, in the Avatars & Abattoirs verse of playwright / poet John F. Walter, it brings the doomed their custom apocalypse / in more dimensions than possible to glean / from stricken larynxes gurgling out shocked shriek / the last undestined words they'll never speak...
... to echo the paradox of the 'Mayan Collapse' in the 10th century when that civilization supposedly fell silent.
The Maximón
On Easter he meets the real jefe (chief) when the risen JC smites this imposter in ceremonial combat. Disrobed & inarticulate, Maximón gets banished.
Like he, this bar could use some God-smack to strip the sugar, vanilla & lecithin off which ironically reduce it to a dartboard played in Q’umarkaj – the archaic Mayan settlement that means ‘place of the rotten cane’... where, in the Avatars & Abattoirs verse of playwright / poet John F. Walter, it brings the doomed their custom apocalypse / in more dimensions than possible to glean / from stricken larynxes gurgling out shocked shriek / the last undestined words they'll never speak...
... to echo the paradox of the 'Mayan Collapse' in the 10th century when that civilization supposedly fell silent.
Appearance 4.1 / 5
| Color: | cool medium brown (w/ purple flash) |
| Surface: | solid retro-Metro mold |
| Temper: | uneven |
| Snap: | a bludgeoning club for a 60%; heavily striated edge bears the scars |
Aroma 7.3 / 10
those big woods in this bar’s 70% sibling cut down in favor of sap, particularly maguey & Guatemalan fir -> mesquite coals -> bletted fruits (bromeliads & citrus); all at the strength of smelling-salts to clear the head / pine-sol strong to clean floors
Mouthfeel 10.2 / 15
| Texture: | stiff motherboard |
| Melt: | interminable |
Flavor 31.6 / 50
briefly-sweet raspberry set in sticky volcanic lava loosely & generously interpreted as ‘licorice’ -> flows-thru to chocolate treacle -> spice revolt (mainly cardamom) -> sap resin gleaned in the Aromatics (pine tar), add mesquite charcoal for some gently-smoked varnish -> goes swampy & murky... extends indefinitely until... resolving kindly on breadfruit & brazil nut -> lays out cardboard-treacle on asphalt in the aft-length
Quality 12.7 / 20
Oh, Mr. Magoo, what have we waded into?
What went wrong? Just about everything that could. Poor drying technique; under-roasted / over-conched; tripped up on lecithin & vanilla.
Unlike its big brother Ujuxtes 70, in addition to 10% more sugar this dons the full make-up kit (vanilla, lecithin, added cocoa butter).
Oddly, any expectations of 10% more sugar transforming the acidic-Twang found in the 70% into sweetly rounder fruits are dashed right after the start. Vanilla mostly sees to that, & exacerbates the cardboard element in the process.
Also apparent, the degree to which vanilla tampers down all those woods into treacle, a dominant note ringing as of late in Blanxart’s Congo all the way from the other side of the world. Both heavily laden with a Calabacillo-type cacao. At 82% that can be forgiven; at 60% this must be condemned... exonerated only for avoiding a cloying trap & falling into a tar pit instead.
The overall arc: an intensively resistant 60% to a 40% sugar onslaught. At these ratios sugar often just abuses cacáo. Despite the long melt, the progression pulls up short save for that post-script of a breadfruit ending.
A bad miss; a sad mess.
ING: cacáo, sugar, cacáo butter, soy lecithin, vanilla beans; CBS (Cocoa Mass / Butter / Sugar) ~1:2:2
Reviewed Autumn 2010
What went wrong? Just about everything that could. Poor drying technique; under-roasted / over-conched; tripped up on lecithin & vanilla.
Unlike its big brother Ujuxtes 70, in addition to 10% more sugar this dons the full make-up kit (vanilla, lecithin, added cocoa butter).
Oddly, any expectations of 10% more sugar transforming the acidic-Twang found in the 70% into sweetly rounder fruits are dashed right after the start. Vanilla mostly sees to that, & exacerbates the cardboard element in the process.
Also apparent, the degree to which vanilla tampers down all those woods into treacle, a dominant note ringing as of late in Blanxart’s Congo all the way from the other side of the world. Both heavily laden with a Calabacillo-type cacao. At 82% that can be forgiven; at 60% this must be condemned... exonerated only for avoiding a cloying trap & falling into a tar pit instead.
The overall arc: an intensively resistant 60% to a 40% sugar onslaught. At these ratios sugar often just abuses cacáo. Despite the long melt, the progression pulls up short save for that post-script of a breadfruit ending.
A bad miss; a sad mess.
ING: cacáo, sugar, cacáo butter, soy lecithin, vanilla beans; CBS (Cocoa Mass / Butter / Sugar) ~1:2:2
Reviewed Autumn 2010