GORCI celebrates hot chocolate all month

THE Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie and Ice Creamery is again holding its Hot Chocolate Festival, with 31 new flavours for chocolate lovers to try throughout

this month.

The Bellbrae chocolaterie is taking the the winter beverage to hot new heights during August, with creations featuring everything from croffle sticks, torched donuts and boozy truffles to exploding balls and melting chocolate discs.

Each creation on the weekly menu contains the chocolateries’ signature dark, milk, white, ruby or caramelised white couverture chocolate, artisan ingredients and a giant handcrafted marshmallow plus interactive elements for slurping, stirring and dunking.

Highlights among the 31 flavours include:

Adults-only concoctions – a Mulled Wine Burst for a wintry celebration or a Chocolate Negroni with chocolate spoon and booze-filled truffle

Decadent dunkers – Crème Brûlée Donut, a S’Mores and Biscoff French Toast as well as the Hazelnut Nutella Croffle Stick

Whimsical – Bush Koala with a handcrafted chocolate koala perched on top, while meringues and fluffy blue fairy floss feature in Heads in the Clouds

Movie-inspired – a popcorn-flavoured Inside Out plus an Emoji dedication complete with giant chocolate LOLs, smiley face and heart discs to melt, and

Nostalgic – a cute Egg & Spoon for children, plus the Kingston Slurp with two house-made ganache filled cookies on a straw.

There is also the Puppuccino carob creation for dogs to enjoy.

Hot chocolate fans can also join in immersive tasting sessions scheduled throughout August to sample eight different festival flavours – then get hands on creating three personalised hot chocolate creations from 50 different ingredients. Bookings essential.

Select Hot Chocolate Festival flavours are available to order online or take home.

There is also the chance to vote for your favourite flavour from this year’s festival and go into the draw to win your body weight in 1kg couverture

chocolate blocks.

“Our annual Hot Chocolate Festival has become a real feature on the calendar for our destinations and we’ve loved coming up with even more decadent and over the top concoctions,” Great Ocean Road Chocolateire and Ice Creamery founder Ian Neeland said.

“And this year, our extra interactive line up of hot chocolate creations will delight visitors to our chocolateries, plus we’re ensuring chocolate lovers everywhere can warm up with our DIY creations at home too.

“We didn’t want anyone to miss out on our kind of winter indulgence.”