One of my favorite products Mont Blanc has ever created is a blender drink we formulated for one of our clients. A well-known coffee company had created this drink but was looking for a way to offer it to their customers so that it was easy to make and serve. This unique frozen coffee beverage is mixed in a blender and combines fresh espresso with milk and ice. It has the smooth and creamy taste of a coffee milkshake, and is one of the most popular menu offerings in their stores. Because it was so popular, however, there were operational problems with being able to make and serve a high volume of drinks while customers waited.

We proposed to create a liquid base for our client, using their coffee, that didn’t require the mixing of powders and fresh espresso in each store. What made this project so interesting was that it took two manufacturers to create the finished product. One of our suppliers used our client’s coffee beans to make an espresso extract. The extract then was shipped to a second manufacturer who combined it as an ingredient into the final blender drink base.

The product is still available and is packed in a 46 oz. container. When stores receive the mix, the entire contents are combined with a half gallon of milk into a one gallon pitcher. When the drinks are ordered, baristas simply pour the mixture into a cup filled with ice, blend, and serve.

Since we created this product, the drink’s sales have consistently increased and baristas are happier because making and serving frozen drinks is so much easier. One of the most gratifying aspects of my job can be the result of working with a customer that allows Mont Blanc to innovate – and then share in our client’s success.

It is the most expensive coffee in the world. But it isn’t from Kona, or even from Jamaica’s fabled Blue Mountains. It is from Indonesia and is called Kopi Luwak. The drink is made from coffee beans eaten by wild civets in the Sumatran jungle.

These jungle cats roam the forests and eat the coffee cherries off of the trees. The beans then pass whole through their digestive tracts and are excreted on the jungle floor. Villagers track the civets and scoop up the dried droppings and remove the undigested, whole coffee beans. The beans are then collected, cleaned, roasted, and ground and used to brew a cup of coffee. Supposedly, the digestive juices from the cat’s body give the coffee an unusual flavor.

I was determined to try this drink on a recent family trip to Indonesia. And as luck would have it, an Indonesian importer found a café that offered the delicate brew. We sampled it in two strengths. The first was 10 percent Kopi Luwak, with the remainder being a blend of other Indonesian beans. The second was 100 percent Kopi Luwak. The 10 percent drink tasted like any other cup of Indonesian coffee. But the 100 percent drink was truly distinctive. It exhibited the usual flavors of a classic Indonesian Sumatran coffee — earthy, smoky, musty, all of which make it my favorite origin. But the drink had a richer, more complex flavor, with more pronounced chocolate and caramel notes. The cost of each cup was about $10. I’m glad I tried it once, but for the price I prefer to drink a classic Sumatran for my daily cup.

Interestingly enough, Kopi Luwak last week made its American debut in Orlando.

I received a box of chocolate truffles as a gift. My friend gave them to me so that we could do a tasting and comparison. The box was a standard gold box with a transparent window to better see the chocolates nestled inside. I opened the box and looked at the dozen small, molded egg shaped truffles resting in the plastic tray. They were quite pretty, although the blue color on one of the white shells was a bit jarring. Still, I thought that the taste would be great since these chocolates had just been named best in town.

Taking my trusty kitchen knife, I cut the first one open. The center was a cross between a buttercream and a ganache; I popped it into my mouth. The center was soft, so it melted easily. The chocolate flavor, however, was overpoweringly sweet. It was a classic case of using an average chocolate for making fine chocolates. I swallowed, and instructed my friend to do the same. She said that it was very sweet. I nodded. The problem is that the chocolate wasn’t in balance. The center was flavored, but the outer shell was so sweet that it overpowered the filling.

Balance is a common problem in cooking and formulating. It is a constant challenge to make sure that the ingredients when mixed together make a harmonious whole. We deal with that situation daily at Mont Blanc.

We are constantly formulating chocolate syrups for our specialty café customers. In order to be successful, however, we must have their coffee beans to work with. Each of our café customers offers a different blend of espresso, using different beans and roasted to different sweetness levels. For us to create the perfect match, we have to pair the chocolate — is it too sweet, not sweet enough, will it overpower the coffee – with the coffee in their finished drink. Balance is key. Unfortunately, this chocolate maker hadn’t yet learned that lesson.

High fructose corn syrup has gotten a lot of bad press this year. There are two major types of corn syrup, regular corn syrup (glucose) and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Both are sweeteners derived from corn. The difference is that HFCS has undergone a special process that converts the glucose in corn syrup to fructose.

To sweeten a liquid product using only sugar can be a challenge. Remember that school science project where you added sugar to water? For a while after the sugar is mixed into the water it stays suspended in solution. However, adding too much sugar can cause crystals to form.

You can only make a product so sweet using sugar. If all of the available liquid is saturated with a number of the different sugars used in syrup, chances are that one of them is going to crystallize. So liquid sugar in the form of corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup helps solve that problem.

HFCS, commonly found in soft drinks and a large number of food products, has recently been blamed for contributing to the obesity epidemic in this country. The science is still being debated, however.

So even though the science is unclear, high fructose corn syrup is used in many products because of its unique properties. At Mont Blanc, we are always looking for the best tasting and most effective products. We have already tested cane sugar, beet sugar, regular corn syrup, and even agave nectar. So my search continues.

I empathize with Susan Lucci. My version of her Emmys are the Fancy Food Show awards for best new products. I have been entering almost every year for the past fifteen years and have never won. And over the years I thought that I had created some really neat, innovative products.

The Kahlua Chocolate syrup was the first cobranded product with such a well-known company for the specialty coffee industry. The bag in box packaging that we used for a while was the most unusual ever used for chocolate syrups. And our line of hot cocoa mixes was the first all-natural, instant drinks on the market. Never even made finalist.

The awards honor innovative, unique products within the specialty food trade and are given out during the Fancy Food shows.

This year, I thought I had a sure-fire winner. Or at least a silver statue for being a category finalist. I entered Mont Blanc’s new single-origin chocolate syrup made using cocoa powder from Ghana. (See July 3 post.) Surely, I thought, a slam dunk, for the academy, who would recognize how innovative an idea this really is.

The notice from the awards committee included comments about why my product was not selected as a finalist. One of the comments was that the product contained high fructose corn syrup and that the judges did not feel that this constituted a “gourmet” product.

High fructose corn syrup in our chocolate syrups is a common ingredient and one that is hard to do without in the world of syrup.

So even though Mont Blanc will have the first single-origin chocolate syrup on the market, I will not be traveling to New York to pick up a gold or silver statue.

Through our partnership with Omanhene, Mont Blanc will continue to support the system that benefits the people of Ghana while offering coffee drinkers a truly unique experience.

As for the Fancy Food Show, I’ll have to try again next year.