Blog Local taste test: Truffle Truffle's beer and pretzel toffee, caramels, and truffles

As far as candy companies go, Chicago’s Truffle Truffle is tearing it up. The company hasn’t been around that long, but with its beer and pretzel toffee brittle, pre-made s’mores, and “baseball truffles,” its gimmicks are hitting big.

The Washington Post called the aforementioned toffee “two parts haute cuisine, one part frat-boy dream.” Food And Wine was into the beer and pretzel truffles, calling them “malty, salty candy.” Esquire bro-ed out over them, saying they could be a perfect Valentine gift for “both of you,” because, “They show sensitivity (you found artisanal chocolates!) and masculinity (they're soaked in beer and rolled in crushed pretzels).” Heck, even the New York Times took notice.

With all this hubbub, we had to get some for ourselves, right? Plus: Beer? Pretzels? Chocolate? How could it be bad? So, we got our grubby paws on all sorts of Truffle Truffle products (none of those famous S’mores, unfortunately), and ate until the sugar coma kicked in.

We tried beer and pretzel, elderflower, apple pie, double dark, passionfruit, triple chocolate, champagne, coconut key lime, pinot, earl grey, strawberry lemonade, and lavender truffles. As if that wasn’t enough, we gorged ourselves on fleur de sel, margarita, lavender peach, Turkish coffee, smoky vanilla, maple bacon, spicy curry, and dulce de leche caramels, plus a big bag of that beer and pretzel toffee. Our lives are horrible.

All of the candy came individually wrapped, and packaged with ribbons and bows. It was all clearly handmade, and crafty looking. It felt like we were diving into really, really nice wedding favors.

The flavors overall, though? Well, chocolate tastes good. Fake fruit tastes gross. Wacky combinations? Those are hit or miss.  That beer and pretzel brittle was everyone’s favorite for days. Scavengers broke off little pieces and gnawed at them all over the office. The toffee was a little thick, and one reviewer thought it should come with, “a candy hammer and chisel,” but overall, delish. The beer and pretzel truffle fared pretty well, too. “Sweet and salty is an unbeatable combo, and the beer gives the ganache a nice bite,” one eater said.

Some of the more unusual truffles hit the spot. Elderflower was pretty tasty, “an understated fruity flavor. Fairly delicate, fairly subtle.” The champagne truffle had a legit subtle flavor of the bubbly stuff, making us long for a nice cold glass to pair it with.

We were split on the Pinot truffle. One taster said it was their “favorite of the bunch in a walk,” “mildly bitter, deep dark chocolate that would go well with pinot.” Others found that deep, dark chocolate to be overly intense, but did concede that to those whose choco-tastes swung that way, it would be a hit. On the other hand, our tasters weren’t fans of Truffle Truffle’s white chocolate at all, finding it to be both “surprisingly jarring” and “an abomination.”

The caramels were delightfully sticky, not too hard, and pretty mild. The fleur de sel was “nicely salty,” and the margarita had a “nice, citrus-y bite.” The smoky vanilla hit the spot for one taster, who deemed it one of the day’s overall winners. “The smokiness kept it from being too cloyingly sweet,” she said. “The vanilla is a natural flavor combo, so its appeal had more to do with taste than novelty.”

Not that any of the novel caramels were bad. The spicy curry smelled heavenly, and came on late with a decent amount of heat and a nice finish. The maple bacon was, of course, both maple-y and bacon-y, in a pretty tasty balance. One taster was feeling the lavender peach caramel a lot, claiming, “The fruity background and floral essence were just right.”

The rest of the tasters abhorred anything lavender, saying the truffle, “tasted like fancy soap smells.” One commenter felt particularly strong, ranting, “Lavender just doesn’t work as a flavor. No matter what, it tastes soapy. Even if we didn’t have the association with soap, it just doesn’t work with chocolate, or pretty much anything. Some things weren’t meant to be. LET IT GO.”

Other “wacky” fruit flavors left us similarly taste-mystified. The strawberry lemonade sat on our tongues like “a mouthful of dry strawberry lemonade mix,” “cloying and over-sweet.” The coconut key lime disappointed, with the flavors blending awkwardly, ending up “somewhere between moth balls and soap.”