Whetstone Chocolates are "artisanal" chocolates - small production, only 6 chocolatiers in a factory the size of two basketball courts. Across the alley is the factory store and there are two other stores; one in the historic district downtown and one on St . Anastasia Island (we saw it yesterday).
Small factory store where be began our tour.
There were only 6 in our tour group and 15 is the limit per tour. We learned so much about the growing, harvesting and processing of chocolate from our tour guide, Ty.
An animated Ty.
A sifter on the right to remove stones, twigs, and bits of shell from the cocoa beans. On the left is a cocoa bean roaster, same as a coffee roaster.
After the explanation of the processing - from tree to cocoa powder, plus sugar, vanilla, cocoa butter and emulsifiers - we moved on to the production of the candy.
Mona running the machine that puts the colored foil on the individual shell chocolate pieces that can be any type of chocolate from milk chocolate to 72% dark chocolate, to flavored (mint, key lime, orange,etc.).
64% chocolate shell candies coming off the machine. Mona can run 5,000/hour through her machine.
Whetstone's also makes fudge of all flavors.
Rocky road fudge made this morning.
Peanut butter, mint, white chocolate, chocolate nut, etc. pans of fudge ready to be cut and sold.
It was a great tour (we all wore hair nets like Mona's) and we were able to taste 6 different types of chocolate. Our tour ticket included a coupon for $2 off a purchase in the store.
We left the car parked in their parking lot and took the bikes for a return to the St. Augustine historic district. Here are some pictures.
George Street, a pedestrian only street. Reminds me of New Orleans.
There were these "alleys" off of George Street.
The old city gates with palm trees logs for walls.
Close up of the city gates made of, you guessed it, coquina.
View of the city gates from the other side - looking down George Street.
View of the outside of the fort from the sea wall. The city of St. Augustine is below sea level.
Horse drawn carriages line the sea wall waiting to provide a tour.
Lions at the beginning of the bridge.
After touring the Historic part of the city we returned to the car in the Whetstone Chocolate parking lot and stopped in for a gelato, which they make (I had key lime and Frederick has chocolate hazelnut) and some chocolate to take home.
I agree!
One last picture of a store that caused us to think of Mary and Renn.
St. Augustine has something for everyone.
Humm.
Tomorrow is a travel day. We will be leaving in the morning for Savannah.
My friend Peter Ngo is at Georgia Tech finishing up his MS :)
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