Bean to Barstool
A podcast exploring the intersections of craft beer and craft chocolate.
Bean to Barstool
Collaboration Case Study: Estelle Tracy on Educators Partnering with Craft Chocolate Makers
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We recently wrapped up our four-episode series called Collaboration for Chocolate Makers, which looked at different collaboration ideas for craft chocolate companies. Today, we’re looking at a case study of a specific kind of creative collaboration within the industry to pick apart how it worked, and how you can apply it at your own chocolate operation.
Estelle Tracy of 37 Chocolates is a chocolate educator whose has been a guest on Bean to Barstool numerous times (you can find links to those episodes below). She reached out to me a few weeks back to let me know about a unique collaboration she was involved in in 2025.
Estelle worked with Castronovo, a popular craft chocolate maker, to release a limited chocolate bar, and then led a virtual event to tell the story of the bar. In our conversation today, Estelle talks about how she approached the pairing, how it worked, what the advantages were on both sides, and what you need to know if you want to pursue a similar collab as either a craft chocolate maker or an educator or enthusiast.
Episode timeline:
1:00 - Narrated introduction
3:35 - Beginning of interview
6:50 - Summary of Estelle's collab with Castronovo
12:05 - How she pitched the collab idea
14:10 - Exclusivity of collab bar
21:05- Business advantage for the maker
22:50 - Developing the collab bar
26:20 - Collaborations between enthusiasts and makers
32:15 - Things she's do differently next time
36:10 - End of interview, closing thoughts on conversation
Mentioned in this episode:
Craft Chocolat Challenge 2026 winners
DC Chocolate Society's Ultimate Chocolate Festival Survival Guide
Past episodes mentioned:
Brewing Pastry Stouts Thoughtfully with Wandering Monsters Brewing
Hi Wire Brewing's 10W-40 Chocolate Imperial Stouts
Wolves, Sons, and Ethereal Confections
Brad Kintzer of TCHO Chocolate
Elmer Pineda of Yojoa Chocolate in Honduras
New Zealand Beer and Chocolate Writer Luke Owen Smith
Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together.
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Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.
Hey everyone, welcome to Bean to Barstool. I just wrapped up a four-episode series called Collaboration for Chocolate Makers, looking at different collaboration opportunities for craft chocolate makers. I think collaboration is something that is really underutilized within craft chocolate. You can catch up with the episodes and blog posts in that series on beandobarstool.com. If you go to any of the episodes or posts in that and scroll to the bottom, it's got a link tree that just has all like links to everything that's in the series, so you can find it all from one spot. Today we're looking at a case study of a specific kind of creative collaboration. This is sort of a capstone on the collaboration series. Bean to Barstool listeners will be familiar with the name Estelle Tracy. Estelle of 37 Chocolates is a craft chocolate educator, extraordinaire. She is uh, I think, a three-time past guest on Bean to Barstool. She's a friend of the podcast. We have her on here often. We've talked about pairing with tea, pairing with wine and beer, uh, pairing unusual or challenging chocolate bars, always a fun conversation. She reached out to me a few weeks back in response to this collaboration series I've been doing, letting me know about a collaboration she was involved in in 2025 that she hopes to repeat again. Estelle is, as I said, a chocolate educator. She does a lot of uh virtual tastings, among other things, and she worked with a popular craft chocolate maker to release a limited chocolate bar and then led a virtual event to tell the story of the bar along with the maker. In our conversation today, Estelle talks about how she approached this collaboration, how it all worked behind the scenes, what the advantages were for both sides, both for her and for the craft chocolate maker, and what you need to know if you want to pursue a similar collaboration as either a craft chocolate maker yourself or as an educator or enthusiast within craft chocolate. I was originally going to look at this type of collaboration in part four of the series when I looked at outside the box collab ideas, but decided to let Estelle demonstrate how this can work from her own experience, and then we'll discuss a little bit more after the interview. Here's Estelle Tracy to talk about her experience as a chocolate educator collaborating with a craft chocolate maker. Estelle, welcome back to Being to Barstool. What have you been up to?
SPEAKER_00Oh, so many things. Thank you for having me, David. It's always fun to catch up. Um, so I've been up to a few things, and uh my latest endeavor is um 37 Chocolates, which uh the is the company I founded, does have a corner shop in uh at my local coffee shop, Filter Coffee, uh in Canada Square PA, which is in Southeast PA, right at the Delaware state line. So I counted 25 different kinds of chocolate, including some some sweeter things. Um, but this is a week old, so I'm experiencing new feelings, and uh uh it's a really wonderful collaboration with um Filter Coffee, which is where I started my craft chocolate journey. So it's a very full circle moment. And uh yeah, and I also uh launched a chocolate educator workshop in back in August, and I'm currently on roading again for August, and it's been very exciting to teach other people how to uh chocolate enthusiasts who might want to turn their own excitement and passion for chocolate into actually booking events. So that's been really exciting. So lots of really fun things happening right now for 37 chocolates.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that is cool. Well, with the educator uh class, I'm curious, is that mostly people who have just been enthusiasts who now want to start educating, or are you getting educators who want to improve their game?
SPEAKER_00So it's it's I I imagine, you know, you never know. Um, you know, you have something in your head, and then when you rub it against reality, you discover new things. So I've had 30 grads in nine countries so far, and uh I have chocolate enthusiasts who really love chocolate and and um are really they want to to get to the other level and they want to share their passion with other people. But I also have had chocolatiers. I find it's chocolatiers who are really are growing an interest in the culture and the history, and it's just the product, making the product is not enough for them. There they keep growing that curiosity and they want to transform that into bookings. And also, I do have people who have been in chocolate for a while and they just want to optimize their offering, perhaps revisit their pricing. This is a big conversation topic as well. And uh yeah, I've been surprised at how diverse, you know, the the people who came to the workshop have been. And uh yeah, and it's just been very exciting. And what I do is like it's it's a live online workshop. So once I understand who the people are, like they fill an intake form and I customize some of the content to make sure I address everybody's concerns. So that's not it's not a pre-recording course. It's really I try to make sure everybody gets what they need out of it. So yeah, and I got to know so many wonderful people. Um, it's been really exciting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's that's really cool. Well, the reason we're talking today, I know you're a frequent guest on the show. We always find fun stuff to discuss. Yes. The reason we're doing this one today is because I've been doing this collaboration series where we're talking about craft chocolate makers collaborating with different businesses, and you were involved in a creative collaboration recently. So, real briefly introduce us to what that collab was and then we'll talk about how it worked.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So, first of all, I have loved that series. I've been like nodding vigorously throughout the whole session in my car, listening to the podcast. And yeah, I thought it would be exciting to talk about what does that look like and what how do you start and where does the seed get planted? So we're gonna go back to August of last year, 2025. I host chocolate tastings and I give talks on chocolate uh for people who may uh find out about me for the first time. And I had an opportunity to partner with Botanical Gardens. And um, so it's a partnership with a partnership, if that makes sense. So the uh Longwood Gardens is uh uh the botanical garden 10 minutes from my house, they partner with a beer garden on a series where they bring in a speaker who talks about botany and food and uh not always food, but botany. And it's uh you get a free drink, uh, usually beer, a free drink, uh, a little appetizer, and and the people listen to the speaker. And I did a talk on the botany of chocolate, and I was thinking to myself, well, would I be fun if I were to introduce people to the concept of single varietal chocolate uh for the first time? I had never done that before. This is really a level of, you know, like geekery that is definitely not mainstream, but I always like to experiment and try things, and they may work or they may not, but at least I will know. And so I looked at um the 37 chocolate inventory and I thought, okay, I I carry Askinosis, National Ariba uh chocolate, love the bar. It is a single varietal. And I thought to myself, well, I do have an existing relationship with Denise Castronovo, Castronovo chocolate. I gave her a call in August, which was a great time because a lot of chocolate companies are not as swamped as in December or February, right? So I thought, why don't I give her a call and tell her about what I'm trying to do? And I asked her, hey, would you happen to have single varietal chocolates in your, you know, in your in your product line? Because I'm looking for a single varietal chocolate. And uh she says, Oh, it's it's funny you bring this up because I do have some pura blanco from Peru that um I haven't molded yet. I mean, it was like early, the chocolate was that close to being ready, and also a test batch of cupolate, which is the seed of cupuasu. That is cupuasu is a cousin of Theobroma Kikao. And um, so it's not chocolate, but it is, you know, ground um ground cupuasu seeds. And I thought that's great because you know, I present to people what both of this product would be. I can frame them. This would be the perfect context for me to sell this product. And then I thought, well, you know, she said that the packaging wasn't ready. And I said, hey, would you be willing to use? So she has like a blank wrapper called Fact that says factory first, stuff that she limited around batches, where she put a sticker. And I said, Would you be open to having these two bars being co-branded, Castro Novo Chocolate 37 chocolates? I really wanted them co-branded versus you know private label. Uh, I think that was more powerful, but I I thought, you know, that'd be great. Let me bring them over. Then I buy the chocolate, put it on social media, and my DM exploded. Oh my gosh, how can I get this? Uh, like it just was because it was exclusive, and Castronovo Chak has already this following. She's an award-winning maker. And so this sense of exclusivity and the co-branded, like people just like were telling me, oh my gosh, I want this, I want this. And for me, what was special about these bars is that they were single varietals. I was buying them as part of a presentation, and I wanted people to get exposed to the education before enjoying the chocolate. For me, this wasn't just a product. This was like, okay, this is special, this is important. And so I really thought, okay, I'm gonna take a break here. I'm not gonna sell this chocolate bar. I'm gonna sit with this and see how we can bring this collaboration to the next level. So that is the context, and we can talk about what the next level looks like.
SPEAKER_01Perfect. Well, let's just go straight from there. So when you had the idea for making this a more formalized collaboration, why what was the process of approaching Denise and kind of pitching her on what your idea was? How did that process go?
SPEAKER_00So it was really single varietal, co-branded chocolate, you know, because those bars were not ready for the public yet. Very scrappy. And I I I can't emphasize enough that I have been working with Denise probably for the past eight years. We kind of got in touch 10 years ago. There was a trust that was already there. There was also like a friendship that developed over the years, and it really started with what if, and which I think is the you know, what if you you, you know, do you have this? And what if we did this together? There is that sense of like possibility and imagination, and also we kept things very simple. A very scrappy wrapper with two stick with a sticker that says Castro Novo and 37 chalk is very simple. Um, and it I think it's you know, Denise had it in stock and uh, but not ready for prime time, you know. Now you can find the pura blanco with this nice wrapper, but it was really, yeah, that was like how we we approached it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So to to clarify, the is the bar that you did in the collaboration now publicly available for the case. Yes, it is. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Correct. Yeah. Uh the couponate, I don't think is out there yet because of supply, like the availability of the coupon, the coupon associates, but it was definitely it's available here first. And um, to give more details, the way I did it is like it for me, it was just like for the 37 chocolates, the business bought the chocolate at a wholesale price, just like any other bar. That was the financial arrangement. So it was no different than any other bar. So, and I'd like to think for Denise, she was able to get this product out a little faster because of you know, uh, of this outlet. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And was there a window of time when it was only available through you or as a collab?
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna say so I had the bar for the presentation was in September, mid-September. And we can continue going to what ended up happening, and it was available till probably the end, yeah, I mean end of October and early November. I want to say that the Pura Blanco came out in uh the official one in December. You know, that's where it was readily available. So it was three months early. So, and we can go back of how we ended up truly bringing the collaboration to the whole to the other level. So, what happened is that when I saw the the excitement for those bars and I really posed about, I really posed. I thought, is this this isn't what this product is? I don't want to just sell the chocolate like it's any other bar on the shelf. This is truly special. And when I saw how excited people were, I said to Denise, let's do something. I host chocolate tasting and I do online, I offer ticketed online tasting year-round, probably every other month on average. And I didn't have anything lined up in October. And I said, this is what we should do. I said, I want these two bars to be available for people who sign up for this online chocolate tasting. I would love for you to be a guest and explain what's so special about this chocolate. And the only way you can get those bars is if you really sign up for the whole experience. We priced it. So I had bought the chocolate, you know, wholesale. And for the two chocolate bars, we priced, uh I priced the chocolate tasting at $67. Um, that included two bars, the presentation and the shipping. And Denise also put a listing out on her website for that. And I said, because, you know, like it's one thing to say, oh well, for a consumer, like in the bean to bar world, we we make a big emphasis on like, oh, our chocolate is made with transparently traded cacao and you know, supply chain. But this is honestly, I find that this is the minimum. And there is, you know, I love how you also talk about, you know, aligning with people's values. It's not because you care or you like the same thing that the values align. For me, it's how can what's the next level of creating uh more equity or really bringing money back to origin? What does that look like? So Denise is a uh board member of the Amazon conservation team. And I can't, I mean, I hope you get to talk to her about her amazing work and her knowledge is absolutely incredible in conservation. And I said, how about we do this? $10 of each ticket will go to the Amazon conservation team. And this is meaningful because this is otherwise it's just pure consumerism. Here's my money, I want the chocolate, move on. No, no, no. We're gonna create something that actually is meaningful, is aligned with Denise's um uh really her own value of being a member, you know, uh being involved in the Amazon conservation effort. And we promoted uh the tasting to each of our audience, and together, Denise and I, Denise, so Castronovo chocolate and 37 chocolates, we managed to raise $500 for the Amazon conservation team, which represents uh one month of work for a ranger, you know, guarding the land. Uh, so that was really exciting. And so we were able to use this excitement, this exclusive Castanovo chocolate to do more good, like to reinvest it back, you know, use that so that we can do something um at origin uh in a way that was aligned. And um Denise ended up sharing um a lot of information from um so on the pura blanco beans, and she explained, you know, the environment in which those beans were coming from, which is those beans are white, a lot of them are white, because I mean she'll tell you more, but they she explained the why, the the scientific reason of why this these beans are white. And people listened to this and uh and I think got to enjoy the chocolate that much more because they had access to this amazing information. Uh, we talked about um you know the arch some of the archaeological sites she had visited uh this that summer. The feedback was incredible because she's a chocolate maker. She doesn't have time to talk about archaeology and Amazon conservation. What I could provide is the marketing of this experience, the audience that I had built over the years for this type of online tasting. Yeah, it was truly a collaboration between the chocolate maker who's busy making chocolate with the chocolate educator that I am, bringing her audience, doing the marketing and the whole collaboration returning back to the Amazon. So this was really a win-win-win situation. And just talking about it now is so exciting because you know it was probably my most attending chocolate tasting to date. And I felt it was truly a fruitful collaboration. And like I know I can't wait to do something like this again.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, no, that's really cool. Well, toward the end there, you addressed part of what I was gonna ask next, which is from a purely business standpoint. What do you feel like the advantage was for Castro Novo to get to partner with an educator like yourself?
SPEAKER_00Taking the marketing off her plate, the promotion of her plate. She doesn't do a lot of Denise doesn't do a lot of Zoom tasting or anything. She didn't have to worry about any of the tech. She didn't have to worry about, you know, getting people in from the waiting room or anything like that. She was able to be that guest and worry about this is my PowerPoint that I'm sharing. That's it, right? And, you know, like I I had really promoted really heavily this tasting. And uh yeah, it it took it took some of the legwork, it took something of the marketing and the promotion off her plate. And also I know how to run a tasting, I know how to make sure people feel included, I know how to engage with the audience. So she had to use brain power, you know, to take in questions or to make sure people were feeling comfortable asking her questions, you know, and then I was able, you know, like all the communication, you know, I like to send the pre-email and then the wrap-up email, and this is the money we raised together, like all this, those communication was to able to take off her place, and she was able to focus on the making and sharing the story.
SPEAKER_01No, that's really cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So was there any development that had to take place for the product itself? Or you do it sounded like this was something she kind of already had available, and then you came alongside with that?
SPEAKER_00Correct. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you see any avenue in the future for planning with her or another maker on developing something that you would have your name on?
SPEAKER_00Uh I do. And I have thoughts to be honest. I have thought about it. I have some makers in mind, perhaps some beans in mind, or at least some I have a very rough concept in mind. I think that for you know, the chocolate, if you uh, you know, I go back to my chocolate selection, the 37 chocolate selection and filter coffee. You know, there is, I'm not there to push the chocolate, right? And to present the chocolates on a minute-by-minute basis. People who come in the shop are not necessarily chocolate enthusiasts the way you and I are, where we know our origins and we know the maker. They are looking at the chocolate and they might just buy the chocolate because of the inclusion or because, you know, so I met somebody today who said, Oh, my father, my father in law is from Ecuador. And I said, Look, Ecuador has an origin. Like everybody's gonna look at those shelves based on who they are and what resonates with them, right? And Pura Blanco. Peru on a chocolate shelf is a very hard sell to mainstream audience. I really highlight mainstream, right? And that being said, when you incorporate something very geeky, a very geeky chocolate bar, there truly is an audience that's exciting to hear about it. We, you know, our success, like we we had uh about 50 people who signed up for this online tasting. So we know with the right promotion and the right chocolate maker. I mean, the Castronovo has been around for so long and she she's very established as a chocolate maker. I I think the trust she had built, the audience that I had, and the trust that I had with my own audience combined with this unique being really attracted this subset in chocolate enthusiasts. And we have the number to show, okay, for you know, you can get people excited about this type of geeky product. And, you know, it would need to be a collaboration with a very established maker as well that has its its own following and trust where people are watching for the next release. So that would be a you know, somebody that's uh a maker that that would need to have that um and might like to make the chocolate, probably like actually not might, who likes to make chocolate more than like necessarily organizing a zoom tasting and sending an email to their newsletter and on and on and on. So um, yeah, so I don't know, maybe somebody is gonna listen to this and uh is gonna talk to me about their rare beans and uh let's do a co-brandy chocolate, you know. Uh but um but Denise is the kind of maker that, you know, I know her bar so well. Um I knew that I could go, you know, I did with my eyes closed, I knew the beans already. We had tested uh the pura blanco together in 2019. So we just there's a lot of things that just made sense about this collaboration.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that sounds very cool. Yeah well, I feel like craft chocolate is kind of unique in what you're describing because working, you know, covering some other craft, food and beverage industries like I do. One of the unique things with craft chocolate, partially because it's still relatively small as an industry, but also just something in the the spirit of the industry, is that there is a very close collaboration between enthusiasts and quote unquote influencers and the actual producers. There is like a familiarity and an intimacy there that doesn't always exist between people who love or write about or run podcasts about other craft industries. So it feels like this is an opportunity that that exists within craft chocolate where you could definitely see some other educators or influencers or enthusiasts pursuing this type of thing. Are there unique things that you think those individuals or chocolate makers should consider if they're considering this type of collaboration?
SPEAKER_00I I think at the core of it there was a relationship. And they can be tricky to build because you know, all of us are based all over the country. We don't, you know, we've never met in person yet, right? A lot of us are are geographically separated and main only occasionally, if at all meet at like chocolate festivals, you know, or chocolate industry events. And um, for the past 10 years, I have attended at least one industry event and one chocolate festival per year. And Denise and I originally connected on on uh the internet. I had reviewed uh her one of her bars in like late 2015, and then we we ran into each other at the Fine Chocolate Industry Association gathering X number of years ago. That original connection was made from the internet, and then we actually sat next to each other, and then I I I had made multiple regular wholesale orders over the years, and every order was like adding to the relationship, it was fueling the relationship. This is something that personally I like to do is I'd rather buy chocolate, because I carry 37 chocolates has its own inventory. I would rather carry three bars from one maker than three different bars from three different makers because my my first company value is people first. I'm in here for the relationship. This is where you get to know people and where you can get to the point of relationship, right? So we we had invested through meeting in person, uh, online review, uh multiple wholesale order, and you know, that really helped force that relationship. And once you have that, then you can have casual conversation because this really this collaboration came from a casual conversation that was based on an existing relationship. So what I would really encourage is for people listening is show up to this chalkhead festival, show up to if you're if you're not very active on Instagram, you know, maybe post a few things, comment on other people's things, but most importantly, if you feel you're vibing with somebody, send them a DM, tell them, you know, engage genuinely with people, because this is the first break to like the these are the first bricks to the relationship. It takes time, takes intentionality. But if you find somebody that, you know, you just seem to vibe for whatever reason, maybe you like their point of view as a chocolate maker, you like the way they use inclusion, can you make room in your inventory? You know, uh if you're if you happen to have wholesale accounts with vendors, can you make multiple orders, pay them on time? That's a huge one. You know, um, and so you know, can you show up for them? Can you show up for them when they don't need you? Um, can you start first? Like, can you provide value to people? And I can guarantee you when you make the first move of doing something and expecting nothing in return, that is gonna fuel that relationship, right? Like uh some examples also is that personally, and what I do is that I'm very fortunate to live a few hours away, three hours away from, say, Mocha Origins. Every Black Friday, we try to go as a family. I mean, uh, because my mother-in-law lives not too far from there, and I just show my face and I just look around. I, you know, what happens is that, you know, let people know you're there and say, hey, can I make time with you? I don't want to interfere, you know, uh, but like if you're not too busy, would you be open to meeting? This is what I do. And I have learned so much uh from these casual gatherings with the staff over there. Um, but you know, invest in that relationship and give before you ask anything from anyone. I think these are good rules outside of chocolate, to be honest. But you know, I was when I I started like that, and I it it's definitely a long-term view, but I reap the benefits of having invested so heavily in going to chocolate festival, being a volunteer at the Fine Chocolate Industry Association at all those gatherings. I have met so many people that way. After that, it's up to you to you know, check in, send people an email. Hey, I read this, reminded me of you. Congratulations, you were quoted in this article. I think at the core of it is a relationship.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's a lot of great advice in there. Absolutely. Uh looking back at this collab finally, is there are there is there anything you feel like you learned that you would do differently if you do this again?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I don't think so. I can't think of um of anything that I would do differently. I just was like I'm a very impulsive person. And this I feel like this is one thing I did right, is I didn't, you know, offer the bars just in in exchange of money. You know, I could have done that from the get-go, send sending the bars to people who send me the DMs. I actually paused and thought and kind of regroup with myself. I'm like, what's going on here? Is this really what I stand for? This is where, you know, during the chocolate educator workshop, I encourage every single attendee. Like before I tell people how to do a tasting, I'm like, you're gonna go to the drawing board and you're gonna define those company values right now before you even have a business. Some of them already do. You're gonna decide what matters to you. And when you have tough decisions to make, you're gonna filter them to those values. And that's kind of what that's that's what I did. So that's how like having those values protected me from myself, to be honest, because this is now how I operate. I'm really like, oh, this sounds fun. Oh my gosh, what did I get myself into? Why did I say yes to this? And I'm like, that is the one thing that I look back. I'm like, wow, I I was protected from myself. That's just the one thing. That's one thing I've felt that that was done, that was done right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay, great. Well, Estelle, keep us updated. If you do this again, I want to hear about your future collaborations and anyone out there listening. Uh, if you've gotten ideas from what Estelle has shared today and you pursue something like this, I know we would both love to hear about it. So please definitely share it with us. Estelle, always fun to have you on the show. Uh, look forward to next time already. Thanks for coming on.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, David.
SPEAKER_01Estelle shares so much great advice here. You can understand why I just rolled everything on this topic into this episode because she summarizes it so well and is so thoughtful in how she approached this collaboration with Denise at Castro Novo. We've talked repeatedly in this series about maximizing what you get out of a collaboration, and that is all certainly true. But Estelle highlights how she goes out of her way to maximize what she can provide a collaboration partner or a potential collaboration partner, even before any specific project is in the works. Obviously, in the professional world, we need to have boundaries and protect our time and only say yes when we can do so fully and enthusiastically. But what she's advocating for here doesn't counteract that. Her emphasis is on making sure that when she interacts with another professional in this field, she is making sure they come away from it benefiting, whether it's a big or small thing. And then when the opportunity to actually work together presents itself, they have had nothing but good experiences with her and already recognize the advantage of working with her. I was talking recently with someone about beer collaborations and they were mentioning breweries collaborating with nonprofits and made the point that when a brewery is doing marketing around a collab of that type, they should always push the nonprofit to the front in that storytelling. The brewery will get its recognition, but by centering the collab partner, the nonprofit gets the attention they need and comes away with a very good taste in their mouths about working with that brewery. What Estelle talks about here, while it's different in terms of the phase of the collaboration that she's talking about, is very similar. This is such a rich area for potential collaboration. While Kraft Chocolate's media ecosystem is still pretty thin at the formal level, we don't have much in way of dedicated publications or legacy media, but we do have a thriving network of educated enthusiasts and chocolate educators. And I know this can be a tough word, but influencers. Instagram is not what it used to be, obviously, but there is still a great community of craft chocolate folks on there. And a lot of these folks have dedicated followings and they are committed to the success of craft chocolate as an industry and to their favorite makers and farms and such. Partnering with one of these folks could be a great opportunity for a craft chocolate maker, particularly when you take into account a collab of this sort, is likely to be a pretty easy lift on your side. You don't have to worry about coordinating ingredients and production schedules with another producer. You're going to be handling it all in-house. So it's just in, you know, and just involves planning the collab and then coordinating the marketing and storytelling. As with every type of collaboration, it is critical, of course, that you make sure your values and reputation align with the person you want to collaborate with. And you're going to need to make sure everything is clearly planned out and discussed and assigned in advance. But basically any type of bar, any occasion could work here. With due diligence, it's pretty low risk and high reward from a collab opportunity standpoint. With that said, I've been thinking about reaching out about a collab with some makers. So maybe we'll see a bean to bar stool collaboration at some point. On this note, I saw from J Street Chocolate that they recently did a creative collaboration with Fun Fact Co., a company that does games and posters. They collaborated on a chocolate infographic poster filled with like fun chocolate facts and stuff like that, along with a chocolate bar that went along with it. So kind of everything we talked about in part four, looking at creative collaboration ideas. There's a world of ideas out there. Let's talk about some beer and chocolate news now before we sign off. The World Beer Cup announced its winners last week. The World Beer Cup is an international beer contest put on by the Brewers Association and is arguably the most prestigious beer competition in the world. Over 8,000 beers were entered by something like 1,500 breweries. I've got that number somewhere, but I can't remember what it was. Huge competition, very, very high level of judging involved in that. And well over a hundred categories were judged. I want to spend a few minutes just to talk about some categories and styles that are relevant to us here on Bean to Barstool. So in the chocolate beer category, the gold went to Wandering Monsters Viator Obscura Triple Chocolate, made with uh cacao nibs from Ethereal Confections. Wandering Monsters was a recent guest here on the show. We talked all about this beer in particular because it has won numerous medals in the past. So big congratulations to them. And you can go back and listen to that episode with the brewers at Wandering Monsters to hear more about that beer and how it was brewed and how they work with cacao and other ingredients. Silver went to Whistler Brewing Whistler Winter Dunkel using cacao nibs from Whistler Chocolate. And bronze went to Sun River Brewing Coco Cow, which is a milk stout with Ghana cacao nibs. Don't have a source for those. I'm assuming that is from Cho Chocolate, because if you see Ghana nibs in a beer and you don't see another craft chocolate maker's name on there, there's a high probability it's from Cho because Cho supplies cacao nibs to uh BSG, which is one of the major ingredient suppliers in craft beer. In the dessert or pastry beer category, the one that I want to note here is uh Highwire. We had the brewers from Highwire on a couple years back to talk about their 10w40 series of pastry stouts, most of which are brewed with cacao nibs from French broad chocolates in Asheville. Highwire won bronze in the dessert or pastry beer category for their 10w40 coconut candy bar. So congrats to them. In the coffee beer category, gold went to River North Squirrels Just Want to Have Fun, which is a fantastic beer name. River North won multiple medals. Uh, they have won a ton of medals over the years at different competitions for chocolate and coffee beers. Um, they work with different coffee roasters around the Denver area where they're located. I'm not sure which roaster they used for this specific beer. Silver in Coffee Beer went to East Village Brewing Stay Calm, which is an American lager made with Ethiopian coffee beans from Talitha Roastery, which is right down the street from them in I want to say Sacramento, but I need to look that up. And bronze went to Carl Strauss Golden Stout. Shout out to my friends at Carl Strauss. They worked with uh Bird Rock Coffee for this and also used vanilla beans and Ganon cacao nibs. Again, most likely from Cho. In Coffee Porter or Stout, gold went to Urban Roots Cafe Americano, made with the Dharma Espresso Roast from Temple Coffee Roasters. Silver went to River North, which we just talked about for their espresso Hello Darkness. And bronze went to Brink Lil Zumi. Shout out to Brink in Cincinnati, not too far from me. This beer and brewery have won just an obscene number of awards over the years. Lil Zumi is on just a tear at uh major awards. Inexcusably, I do not uh know who they are using for their coffee. I need to track down that information. Uh, but congratulations to all those winners at the World Beer Cup and the winners in all the styles. It's always fun to see breweries get to celebrate their craft. Speaking of competitions, the craft chocolate challenge winners were announced recently. Congratulations to all the winners. In particular, I want to shout out Yahoo Chocolate from Honduras. We just had Elmer Pineda on the show from Yahoa a couple months back. Their Anis Avocado White Chocolate, which we talked about in that episode extensively, won third place overall in Best of Show and won Best White Chocolate Bar outright. So huge congratulations to them. That bar has a fascinating story behind it. So go back and listen to that episode. I'm gonna put in the show notes the links to all the episodes I just mentioned from these different folks who've won awards if you just are curious and want to go back and hear more about them. Uh very, very cool. Couple upcoming uh interesting things to keep an eye on. I saw that front porch chocolate, who we've previously had on the show. They are doing a pairing on May 20th with Sage Rat Wine. So you can check out their Instagram page or their website. Um, I recently had somebody request some bars and beers for me for a private pairing, and I provided them with uh front porches Fig and Cherry Dark Chocolate Bar, along with Rodenbach Grand Crue, Flanders Red Ale, and they were just over the moon about it when they tried it. So that's a fantastic pairing. A couple other pairing uh announcements that I saw recently that looked kind of fun. Rhyme and Reason Chocolate uh announced they're gonna be doing a chocolate and cocktail pairing on May 16th. So you can check out their page to learn more about that. Indulgence Chocolatier in Milwaukee announced their summer pairing schedule. So they do like pairing classes and they're super specific. So they have like a pairing class on pairing craft chocolate with old fashions specifically, or different specific types of wine uh or spirits. Unfortunately, they're not doing any beer classes this summer, um, but they have a whole range of those. So if you're in the area, definitely check those out. And then this isn't a pairing, but I thought it was pretty cool. Beto Chocolate announced that they're doing a Titanic-inspired bar. Uh, they have a really witty newsletter, so you should sign up for that just for the fun writing in it. But the Titanic bar is inspired by the character of Rose from the movie Titanic. Uh, and it's made with rose and sea salt. So I thought that was kind of fun. DC Chocolate Society recently shared the Ultimate Chocolate Festival survival guide on their Instagram page, and I thought it was great. It's just kind of like a one-page primer on everything you should do to be prepared for a craft chocolate festival. And some of this stuff was applicable to beer fests or any other kind of food or beverage fests. Some of it was more specific, uh, but I thought it was great, so definitely go check that out. And then finally, shout out to my friend Luke Owen Smith, who is also a past guest on this show. He brought to my attention that Lucid Chocolatier in New Zealand made a bar with fresh hops. And then I got their newsletter and saw that they also have a couple of different IPA-infused bars. Uh, I'm gonna reach out to them and get them on the show, hopefully, because that is just too many cool things to ignore. So thanks to Luke, and hopefully uh we'll get them on the show soon. You heard Estelle and I talk about Mocha Origins in Pennsylvania. She also mentioned the Amazon conservation project that Denise at Castro Novo is involved with. I'll be putting links to all that stuff in the show notes. Thanks to uh the sponsors for being to Barstool and for Final Gravity, they make this and our Final Gravity zine possible. Uh so big shout out to all of them. And speaking of, the next issue of Final Gravity comes out in just a couple days, and you you have a couple days left to pre-order for free domestic shipping, uh, and then it just rolls over to fairly cheap shipping after that. But you can order that individually or subscribe or sign up on Patreon. Uh, it's a very cool zine telling personal, human-centered stories from the craft beer world. Thanks to Estelle Tracy for coming on the show today. Thanks to all of you for listening. Hope you enjoyed this episode of Being to Barstool.