Happy Valentine’s Day Peko! You’re my favorite foodie! This year I skipped the usual maccha chocolate and got Peko fruit flavored vinegar chocolates from a vinegar shinise company in Gifu that has a small stand at Takashimaya Department Store in Kyoto. The novel flavors of blueberry, orange and grapefruit, strawberry and lychee, lemon and pineapple were greatly enjoyed by these foodies!

Fruit Vinegar Chocolate Bonbons
These novel bonbons are made with white chocolate and came in 4 flavors; blueberry, citrus mix (orange and grapefruit), strawberry and fruit mix (lychee, lemon and pineapple). They are a white chocolate shell with fruit vinegar syrup inside.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Peko!

OaksHeart is the brand name, I can imagine the literal translation in Japan. I think it sounds better in Japanese than in English. ‘Oak’ is probably a reference to the barrel that vinegar is aged in.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Peko!

Fruit Vinegar Chocolate Bonbon

Uchibori’s Fruit Vinegar Chocolate Bonbon Lineup

How did they taste?
The white chocolate shell was quite sweet and the syrup inside was very thick, tasting richly or fruit with quite a strong vinegar punch.

From the photoshoot we first tried the chocolate and the vinegar syrup separately. We were surprised by the taste which seemed kind of ‘American’ to us; very sweet chocolate and very strong vinegar — short on subtlety.

The second round of bonbons we ate whole and were startled at the well proportioned sweet and sour. The taste was still very big, very full-bodied, but quite a balance. The fruitiness of the fruit vinegar was not lost either.

The taste was not perfectly balanced, but it was excellent and unlike anything I have imagined before — vinegar, fruit and chocolate!

Blueberry Fruit Vinegar Chocolate Bonbon

Peko couldn’t resist dissecting a few bonbons for the camera.

Citrus Fruit Vinegar Chocolate Bonbon

Citrus Fruit Vinegar Chocolate Bonbon

About the Maker
Uchibori Vinegar, Inc. in Gifu prefecture was the first producer of Western style grape vinegar in Japan. The current owner is Japan’s first ‘vinegar’ sommelier. Uchibori makes traditional Japanese vinegar and well as fruit and ‘dessert’ vinegar.

We like to visit their stand at Takashimaya Department Store in Kyoto and enjoy their vinegar mixed with milk which turns it into instantly thick and sour fruity yogurt.

Uchibori Vinegar website: Japanese | English

About Valentine’s Day in Japan
On Valentine’s Day in Japan, women give chocolate to men; lovers, co-workers, friends, dads, etc. White Day, March 14 was created to sell more chocolate. On White Day men give chocolate to women that they received chocolate from. Both Valentine’s Day and White Day are big business in Japan.

Miwa got these bonbons at a huge Valentine’s Day chocolate ‘exhibition’ at Takashimaya.