This Dominican single-origin shares real family resemblance with Bare Bones’ Guatemalan bar — the same smoky aroma laced with tobacco and molasses, and the same reluctance to reveal itself on first taste.
When it does open up, Maldon sea salt arrives first, making way for orange and peach that shift into a zesty caramel character. Jammy red fruit follows, before the bar settles into a surprising note of sourdough brown bread towards the finish.
The aftertaste is where this bar earns its keep: creamy and milky despite containing no dairy at all, closer to a milk than a typical dark chocolate finish. That’s a genuinely persistent effect rather than a fleeting impression, which is what made it memorable.
Salt threads through the whole tasting rather than sitting in one place — coming forward as the fruit and caramel recede. A well-judged, layered use of salt rather than a single hit at the start or end.
A complex, patient bar with plenty going on, from smoky beginnings through fruit and caramel to that unexpectedly creamy close.
Overall Rating: 7 out of 10