Sweet collaboration worth a shot for 2 local businesses

Above Average Drinks is using cacao husks from Delavoye Chocolate to create a cacao liqueur. The liqueur uses the husks of the cacao bean.

Making the most of chocolate? At Christmas? That’s the spirit!

Two local businesses have come together to create alcohol out of a product that’s usually thrown away.

Above Average Drinks is using cacao husks from Delavoye Chocolate Maker to make a cacao liqueur.

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Delavoye says the husk accounts for about 25 per cent of the cacao bean.

It is not used to make chocolate and is typically composted.

The consumable creation came about when the two companies collaborated to make a chocolate bar that used one of Above Average Drinks’s spirits, said the liquor manufacturer’s chief executive officer and co-founder.

“That quickly led to (us saying), ‘Hey, what are some other things around here that we could use to generate new products and just be a little bit innovative?’” Warren Johnston told CTV News Edmonton on Tuesday.

He says the cacao liqueur is similar to creme de cacao, a common mixable, chocolate-based liqueur. It is made from 100% cacao husk instead of chocolate, however, and is sweetened slightly with beet sugar, resulting in a product that is “more fruity and complex” than other chocolate spirits on the market, Johnston says.

Antoine Lavoie, the founder and chocolate maker at Delavoye, said collaborations with other businesses is one of his firm’s pillars.

“We value collaboration, because since we opened, we’ve been supported by other businesses, by local folks, so it just makes sense that we support one another,” Lavoie told CTV News Edmonton. “Without these local collaborations, we would never have been able to create something so unique.”

The by-product of the liqueur is also being used to make a secondary spirit: a cacao aguardiente.

Above Average Drinks is already working on a second batch, with plans for it to be available in time for the next holiday famous for chocolate: Valentine’s Day.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Brandon Lynch