Impact
What's 'Infernale' got to do with it? Maybe Pralus believes in Cocteau's view that we live in an age deprived of gods but Hades looms anyhow, we're all doomed, going down for the sins of our mothers & fathers. If mythology's composed of lies that become truths, then what better way to spend eternal condemnation than in our own concoction, like Pablo Escobar living under house-arrest in his own pool-side mansion dining on escabeche.
This 'Infernale' could be Dante's 7th circle - some kind of lucky sub-basement dept store mess-hall, thick in gloopy morass that's sweet as hell - with an improbable citrus sun too - thereby conquering it. Pralus, ever the rebel with a cause toward the flame (a great WWI memoir, btw): "Will the end of the world come at night?... No, dawn."
This 'Infernale' could be Dante's 7th circle - some kind of lucky sub-basement dept store mess-hall, thick in gloopy morass that's sweet as hell - with an improbable citrus sun too - thereby conquering it. Pralus, ever the rebel with a cause toward the flame (a great WWI memoir, btw): "Will the end of the world come at night?... No, dawn."
Appearance 5 / 5
not supposed to look this good; a solid brick, toned like Cindy Crawford or Brigitte Bardo; the only close in-category competitor is Venchi's gianduja monolith
not supposed to look this good; a solid brick, toned like Cindy Crawford or Brigitte Bardo; the only close in-category competitor is Venchi's gianduja monolith
| Color: | vulva pink; no tan lines - Bermuda Triangle style (though probably from Java white beans) |
| Surface: | waxed smooth |
| Temper: | unreal for Milk Choc: panné lustrous |
| Snap: | nut crackle, otherwise soft putty |
Aroma 8.1 / 10
fair interplay between toasted almonds & hazelnut butter; underlying dairy
Mouthfeel 11.9 / 15
| Texture: | whole nut crunch soup |
| Melt: | warped-speed, nucleated-meltdown w/ charred bone fragments |
Flavor 44.8 / 50
sugared nut shack, 'grill on' -> Milk Chocolate fights for flavor, cuts thru by underpinning the structure w/ cultured buttermilk FXs backed w/ a bright-break of citrus & herbs (lemon balm + juniper) -> nowhere to go but back to nuts in a melange oozing caramelized pine sap
Quality 18.3 / 20
A confected success. Breaks the box on an old standard - gianduja. Basically a (very) modified Melissa (Pralus' 45% Milk Choc) fueled by near-fatal amounts of sugar ethanol, stomped on by nuts. Almonds the deft pontoon between Java's citrus & hazelnut butter's ponderous heaviness, that galvanizes the confluence of factors leading to all those uplifted pines (great amber finish).