Oaxaca
by Vosges
Impact
Among the few adroit efforts from this suspect label, the rest of the line being so much dreck that anything half-way decent produces cheers... tantamount to rooting for the Cubs just to make the playoffs because they're so adorable for having never won the World Series in eons.
Signature Vosges M.O.: leaves you not wholly satisfied, wanting not necessarily more, just better. 2 varieties of chili on the very low end of the Scoville Index combine for less than the sum of their parts, totaling up thermogenic pussycats with little of the zippy spirit-fruit one expects, making Vosges semi-chiliphobes. C'mon girls, your secret admirers can take it & can also understand if you must fake it in order to hoard the real stuff for vaginal boluses.
Signature Vosges M.O.: leaves you not wholly satisfied, wanting not necessarily more, just better. 2 varieties of chili on the very low end of the Scoville Index combine for less than the sum of their parts, totaling up thermogenic pussycats with little of the zippy spirit-fruit one expects, making Vosges semi-chiliphobes. C'mon girls, your secret admirers can take it & can also understand if you must fake it in order to hoard the real stuff for vaginal boluses.
Appearance 3.6 / 5
| Color: | opaque w/ burnt orange tint |
| Surface: | smudged w/ fingerprints from the factory |
| Temper: | lackluster |
| Snap: | tight; granulated edge |
Aroma 7.9 / 10
flatline chocolate enlivened w/ salsa sauce sweetened by a little raisin
Mouthfeel 10.3 / 15
| Texture: | dry, flash powder; unrich |
| Melt: | quick |
Flavor 41.7 / 50
breakers down cocoa powder -> wrinkled raisin -> dry Cabernet for the most part masks the flavor of peppers that eventually come thru as a nicely warm antique molé (w/ vanilla shadow) over chapulines (grilled grasshoppers) -> more raisin toward finish -> deflates parched chocolate-tamale; paprika after-taste
Quality 15.8 / 20
Oaxaca is located near fabled Soconusco, the epicenter of Mexican cacáo during pre-Columbian times, which even today supports a thriving albeit mass-production chocolate industry. Why Vosges would use cacáo from half-way around the world (Tanzania) in a Oaxaca bar when plenty of equally low-grade, bulk beans grow in America's own backyard remains yet another of the company's confounding decisions as it falsely humps & hypes chi-chi ethnobotany.
To its credit (& probably dumb-luck) the peppers pair well (especially rich-flavored pasilla which literally means ‘little raisin’, traditionally smoked in Oaxaca, a degree of detail that Vosges naturally ignores) to this bean with its own inherent raisin accents even if the underlying CQ is a bit of a broken platform (dirty, stale tannins), giving this bar an overall dusty-outlaw-roaming-the-low-dry-desert feel.
To its credit (& probably dumb-luck) the peppers pair well (especially rich-flavored pasilla which literally means ‘little raisin’, traditionally smoked in Oaxaca, a degree of detail that Vosges naturally ignores) to this bean with its own inherent raisin accents even if the underlying CQ is a bit of a broken platform (dirty, stale tannins), giving this bar an overall dusty-outlaw-roaming-the-low-dry-desert feel.