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Lake Champlain Chocolates - Factory
Rating Details »
- Price Range:
-
$$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
5 reviews for Lake Champlain Chocolates - Factory
For sanitary reasons the lot of chocolating equipment is behind glass. Even still, you can see everything! The mixing tanks, the enrober, the molding area, and the cooling area. The tour guide we had was great but definitely turned on the sass when a group of old folks towards the back wouldn't stop chatting and drowning her out.
The schpiel from the guide was about 10 minutes tops. They pass around white chocolate and three grades of milk and dark chocolate for tasting. We also were able to taste a big piece of their holiday dark chocolate with peppermint in it, yum!
The store is kind of small once everyone starts shopping after the tour is over. The chocolate are pricey but so delicious. My faves? The salted milk chocolate caramel and the almond butter bark.
Okay sure, their chocolates may not fare to the likes of See's or Ghirardelli or other famous confectioner. But I have to credit them for presentation, packaging and generosity when it comes to giving out free samples. We used to stop by at their store on Church street to get a few pieces of their specialty chocolates and to drink hot chocolate while sitting by the bar and watching staff make their next batch of caramel apples or fudge.
But, since we discovered their factory store that is not far away from Church Street, we prefer to go there instead. WARNING: SPOILER ALERT! If you go on weekdays, you can catch their "factory tour" which runs by the hour and is about half an hour long. Usually, one would imagine a walking tour when it comes to visiting factories. But in this tour, visitors basically just sit in an elevated lounge, with the view of the factory interior and the workers in action. A staff member then narrates the company's history, describes their different products and explains some processes in their chocolate-making business. The prize you get for listening to this lecture for 30 minutes is an abundant sampling of their chocolates. The tour is free so nothing gets better than this.
If you come on a weekend, there's no tour and the factory is not in operation but you can see what it looks like through the glass windows. No big deal. Just use your imagination. Then look for chocolate samples throughout the store. Also, they have factory seconds of some of their chocolates and they are a lot cheaper than if you had bought them at the store at Church Street. It makes for a great giveaway idea.
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This place is amazing! Reflecting VT's granola roots, a lot of their chocolates are USDA organic.
They have FREE factory tours M-F 9-2pm. Unfortunately, I only came during the weekends. (However they had free samples hidden in every corner! YUM). The girl at the counter says the tour is totally worth it (It's free so nothing to lose).
I love their factory seconds. Why pay $5 for a bar of chocolate when you can get it for $1.75? I wish I bought more chocolates for my trip home.
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Really, really sub-standard and overpriced chocolate. just because you tag a "Vermont" to it and make it local, does not make it good.
We really enjoyed visiting the factory! The chocolates are very good, although a bit pricey. They have a huge selection to chose from, and everything we sample was delicious. I'm glad we live as far away as we do, otherwise we'd be broke and slightly overweight!!
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