The name PB Chocolates stands for "Paul's Best". I thought a simple name that reflected the chocolates (my best efforts) would be good. It is easy for people to remember, and is different from lots of other names I have seen.
Of course, some of my wife's friends would tell a different story. I started out making ganache walnut truffles, and they were quite popular with the crowd she spent time with. They were always excited to receive them, enjoyed eating them, and so on. The truffles are little round things. Kind of ball shaped. I will let you guess what they called them...
Years ago, my wife and I did dinner parties with our friends. Our house was a good spot, being larger and with a good dining area and kitchen (we are a little older than most of our friends, and so got a house a little sooner). Everybody would bring something, we would eat and drink, talk and laugh, all the usual things. Since desserts are a little harder to transport than some other things, I often ended up doing them. I had a fondness for chocolate (and really, who doesn't?), and would try to make things we'd had at restaurants. I became more interested (in part from frustrating failures) in how to do things with chocolate. So I took a class...
There was (and still is) a cooking school near our home, and they offered a class on tempering chocolate and making molded confections. It was fun, so I acquired a few tools. I had lots of failures along the way (which my wife's friends loved; it didn't taste bad, it just didn't look pretty), but slowly learned to work with chocolate.
That was fifteen or twenty years ago. My friends have eaten a lot of my chocolate and have, for a while now, encouraged me to make it professionally. So, here we are!
America made chocolates well before I was born, but much of it was not really very high quality. In recent years, we have encountered European style chocolates. The chocolate in them is, generally, much better (using cocoa butter rather than paraffin for example). I enjoy a good, old-fashioned American candy bar, but a European truffle is altogether a different experience.
However, even among the finest chocolates, I found that the flavors were sometimes quite subtle. Subtle can be nice (like complexity in a fine wine, or a cleverly plotted mystery), but my feeling was that it is not as well suited to the American palate. We tend to like things a little bigger. A little bolder. So, that is what I do in my chocolates.
Part of my goal with PB Chocolates is that you never have to guess what you are eating. If it is a lemon chocolate, you should almost be able to smell the lemon tree. If you are eating a raspberry chocolate, you should be strongly reminded of summer. A mint chocolate should be unquestionably minty. So when you eat a PB Chocolate, don't be surprised if it is a different experience than you are used to.
Well, here obviously, but I am also working on getting a wholesale license, and then working out details with some local shops. Keep an eye on this page to learn when and where you can buy them.