Gearharts Fine Chocolates - Chocolate Dipped Pistachio Toffee 3.5oz box

Gearharts Fine Chocolates began in 2001 in Charlottesville, Virginia, when pastry chef Tim Gearhart and restaurateur Bill Hamilton launched an artisan chocolate shop with little more than a bowl and two forks. A Marine Corps veteran trained at the Culinary Institute of America, Gearhart hand-dipped about 700 chocolates a day that first holiday season. Today the Virginia company is celebrating 25 years and was recently named Best Chocolate Shop in the USA Today 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards.

This toffee began as a garnish: in 2001, shards of buttery pistachio toffee topped Gearharts’ orange ganache chocolates. When the company wanted products with a longer shelf life, Gearhart turned them into a confection of their own. Rich, buttery toffee is loaded with roasted, lightly salted California pistachios and then dipped in bittersweet chocolate.

Salty, crunchy, and buttery, each piece is packed with bright green pistachios and finished with a cool, silky coat of bittersweet chocolate. The toffee is rich and slightly sticky, a pleasing contrast to the smooth chocolate, and the bittersweet coating balances the sweetness with a gentle bitterness.