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Clementine Truffles

I’ve always harbored a Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory fantasy, a thought that somewhere hidden in the Twin Cities there resides a real life chocolate factory with delicious treats and edible décor. While you won’t find edible walls or chocolate rivers in St. Paul’s new shop, Blood and Chocolates, what you will find is just as delectable.

Owners Bo Wayne & Kerry D'Amato

Owned by Kerry D’Amato and chocolatier Bo Wayne, Blood and Chocolates’ innovative take on a sweets parlor highlights a European-inspired line of handcrafted chocolates, chocolate libations and artisan chocolate-focused products from all over the world. Take for instance Le Whif, a chocolate inhaler tube from France that gives you “the sensation of chocolate.” It’s the perfect answer to your daily chocolate fix sans the calories. With chocolates like bourbon & bacon, honey chai, and B&C’s odes to rock legends flavors like the Joplin – dark chocolate ganache with Southern Comfort and pecan – and the Cobain – blackberry and gunpowder green tea ganache – and don’t even get me started on their truffle flavors – Clementine! – there’s no way you won’t get addicted. And that’s just what Wayne and D’Amato are banking on. On food blog, the Heavy Table, D’Amato explains: “Our philosophy is that chocolate is a drug, and we are your pusher,” she said. “And so we really want to educate the public on the positive attributes of chocolate from a pharmaceutical background, because they are definitely there. There are many positive qualities to chocolate. Chocolate, like coffee, has caffeine-like properties to it, but not caffeine in a coffee sense because you get the high, you get the lift, but you don’t get the drawbacks.”

We are ready. Long live the thirst for chocolate.

Blood & Chocolates Metro Mag Ad

Catch a grand opening of Blood and Chocolates on Selby Ave later this month.

Blood and Chocolates, 495 Selby Ave, St. Paul, 651.492.4799