3 Mexican Chocolate Brands You Should Know

When it comes to Mexican chocolate, Abuelita and Ibarra aren’t the only brands in the game. Several smaller labels — each using 100 percent Mexican cacao — have popped up in recent years, creating a veritable renaissance in the field.

Here are three small-batch Mexican chocolate brands that stand out. 

1. Seasons of My Heart Chocolate Oaxaqueño

Chef Susana Trilling runs one of Oaxaca’s best-known cooking schools, and her staff creates this artisan-style chocolate — sold in both almond and traditional flavors — from a small house behind the school itself, in San Lorenzo Cacaotepec, Etla. “We work the chocolate by hand. We actually massage it,” Trilling says. 

Besides the usual Oaxacan hot chocolate mixed with water, the chef says she likes melting the bars into savory dishes, such as duck in a chocolate-achiote sauce. Every one-pound box also comes with a chocolate bread pudding recipe printed on the inside.

2. Que Bo!

Lauded Mexican chocolatier José Ramón Castillo has been an evangelist for his country’s native cacao for the past eight years, launching two Mexican chocolate boutiques in Mexico City and hosting several chocolate-themed TV shows. His products, all made in Mexico, range from mole-filled bonbons to bars flavored with sal de gusano, plus couvertures made from 100 percent Mexican beans. “There’s no reason to rely on European products when you have the quality here,” he says. 

Que Bo! accepts orders from anywhere in the world through their website, or via email at chef@quebo.com.mx.

3. Rancho Gordo Stoneground Chocolate

The cacao beans behind Rancho Gordo’s stoneground chocolate are toasted by hand on a wood-fired clay comal, in the village of Xochistlahuaca, Guerrero. “It’s handmade, completely, by one woman from start to finish,” says Rancho Gordo owner Steve Sando. There’s also no white sugar — this chocolate combines only cacao, cinnamon and piloncillo (unrefined Mexican cane sugar) that’s also made near the same Guerrero village.

Sando says he likes eating the chocolate with almond milk, for a more flavorful take on hot chocolate, or putting a “judicious teaspoon” in a pot of beans.