MISSOULA — The go-to Valentine’s Day gift is iconic– a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates.
While the pharmacy or grocery store has great options for last-minute sweets, Missoula is home to two artisan chocolate makers, taking that heart-shaped box to the next level.
Franceso Ducrey opened a Ducrey Chocolate Maker in Missoula in 2020, a realization of a lifelong dream.
“It’s a fascinating world, I’ve always been fascinated by chocolate in general,” he says. “It’s a huge playground, and we are having a lot of pleasure, fun.”
Ducrey grew up in Turin, Italy, which is said to be the country’s chocolate capital– chocolate was first introduced to Turin in the 16th century.
After falling in love with Montana on a visit with friends, Ducrey moved to Missoula about 25 years ago.
The chocolate made at Ducrey Chocolate Maker in downtown Missoula is bean to bar, meaning everything is made from scratch and in-house. Ducrey imports his cacao beans from Central and South America, choosing at least one bean from each country along the equator.
Ducrey ensures that all of his beans are ethically sourced– he says all the farmers are paid well and everything is grown organic.
Using quality cacao is important to Ducrey.
“It’s a very complex flavor,” he says. “When you taste wine, lets say you have a palette of 100 different flavors mixing together, in cacao you have 1,000.”
Flavor variety exists even between different cacao batches from the same country. Ducrey says the same chocolate bar from his shop could taste different depending on the batch.
“We put forward the personality of the cacao,” he says.
The process for Ducrey chocolate is very different from a wholesaler like Hershey’s and Lindt, in more ways than one. Ducrey uses minimal ingredients– cacao, cacao butter and sugar– while a larger company may add palm oil or other synthetic ingredients.
Ducrey chocolate is made for flavor, not preservation, making the chocolate bars much healthier than something you’d buy at a pharmacy, according to Ducrey.
The process of making chocolate in the back of Ducrey’s store in Missoula takes about five days.
First, Ducrey hand-sorts the beans. The best quality beans are then roasted in an oven, before the skin is peeled off.
Underneath the husk is the nib– the heart of the cacao bean. Ducrey says nibs are a superfood, and even enjoys them everyday for breakfast.
For the next couple days, the nibs are refined, melting down into a thick liquid. Ducrey adds sugar– the amount is dependent on the level of dark chocolate the batch will be. For example, 70% dark chocolate contains 30% sugar.
The liquid is then poured into a mold, refrigerated, then wrapped with the Ducrey logo and sold to happy customers.
The bean to bar process used by Ducrey is not very common. In fact, Ducrey claims there to be less than 400 bean to bar chocolate makers in the entire nation.
Despite the uniqueness of bean to bar chocolate, Ducrey is not the only of its kind in Missoula. Posh Chocolat is another artisan chocolate maker that makes its treats from scratch.
Ana and Jason Willenbrock opened Posh Chocolat in 2005 as a confectioner, meaning they bought already-made chocolate and molded it into truffles and other sweets. They slowly transitioned to a bean to bar producer until 2022, when 100% of their chocolate was made in-house.
Their location in the Florence Hotel in Downtown Missoula has been a staple since 2005, and Valentine’s Day is one of the busiest times for the shop.
“The day of Valentine’s can be pretty crazy, without a doubt,” Jason says. “We sometimes have a line out the door.”
Posh Chocolat recently moved into a new warehouse in Bonner near the Kettlehouse Amphitheater, where they make chocolate that ships out nationally.
For both chocolatiers, the love of their product matches the love from their customers.
“We are creating something that at the end of the day is going to make someone happy,” Ana says.
“It’s magic. Cacao is Magic,” Ducrey says.
And their employees feel that artisan chocolate can take a Valentine’s gift to the next level.
“It really shows that you really care for them because you are supporting someone who takes the time to make good, quality food.”
