Couple start home-based medicinal chocolate business

View larger image Andrew Speziale watches as his wis wife, Cadyn, pours the finished chocolate mixture for their chocolates into a silicone mold. The couple offer organic, raw, medicinal chocolates through their new home-based business, Immortal Mountain Apothecary, in Front Royal. Rich Cooley/Daily On the Web For more information, visit www.immortalmountain.com Recommend This Print This Get E-mail News Alerts Buy Photos/Page Reprints * Breaking News If local news is breaking and you know about it: * Call Us: 800-296-5137 * E-mail Us * Upload Your Photos View larger image Andrew and Cadyn Speziale give their chocolate the taste test. Rich Cooley/Daily View larger image From left, Wild at Heart, made with hibiscus and holy basil; Black Flower, which includes maca, a root vegetable grown in Peru; and Wolf Berry, which contains goji berries, are surrounded by whole cacao beans at the couple’s home. Rich Cooley/Daily View larger image Cadyn Speziale adds bee pollen to the silicone chocolate mold before the chocolate mixture is added. Rich Cooley/Daily View larger image Calcoa power is added into calcoa butter in the mixing. Rich Cooley/Daily View larger image Cadyn Speziale mixes her mixture in a blender Rich Cooley/Daily View larger image Cadyn Speziale pours the finished chocolate into a silicone chocolate mold. Rich Cooley/Daily View larger image Below, the couple show off the finished chocolate product that will be flash-frozen, then placed in the refrigerator before packaging. Rich Cooley/Daily

By Laetitia Clayton - lclayton@nvdaily.com

FRONT ROYAL - Keep it simple, pure and as natural as possible. And while you're at it, try not to waste anything.

Cadyn and Andrew Speziale have taken this philosophy -- which they strive to incorporate into their daily lives -- and infused it into their new, home-based chocolate business, Immortal Mountain Apothecary.

In their home, perched on a Blue Mountain hillside outside of Front Royal, the couple turn out what they call medicinal chocolates about twice a week.

With main ingredients like cacao powder, cacao butter, coconut oil, a pinch of sea salt and a little natural sweetener -- such as stevia -- each of the three different flavors are distinguished by the herbs that are added.

Wolf Berry Cacao has goji berries, known for their antioxidant power, while Wild at Heart has hibiscus flower -- good for the heart, the Speziales say -- and holy basil leaves, which have a calming effect.

"We don't claim to prevent or cure anything," Cadyn Speziale says, adding that they do try to retain nutrients and antioxidant benefits as much as possible.

"You don't have to feel guilty about eating this chocolate," she says.

"No, it's just joy," adds her husband. "No guilt, pure joy."

Their third variety of chocolate, Black Flower, contains maca, which the couple say is a root vegetable grown at the highest elevation in the world, the Andes Mountains in Peru.

Other ingredients they use include bee pollen, vanilla bean and black lava salt. All ingredients used in making the chocolates are "raw, organic & hand-crafted with love," reads the packaging for the bars. Each bar contains two square, individually wrapped pieces of chocolate totaling 1 ounce.

In their kitchen on a recent morning, the couple go through their chocolate-making process. First, the cacao butter is melted in a dehydrator at a low temperature so as not to lose nutrients. While Speziale grinds the dry ingredients -- herbs, salt and sweetener -- with a large mortar and pestle, his wife adds the melted cacao butter and coconut oil to a blender.

"There's a lot of joy in using the whole herbs and whole ingredients," says Speziale, who adhered to a raw-food diet for about 10 years but doesn't exclusively stick to it now. "Both of us have dabbled in raw foods over the years. We're really interested in the quality and purity of our foods. Our focus right now is organic whole foods."

"We believe wholeheartedly in using the whole plant when possible," his wife says as she adds the dry ingredients, including the cacao powder, to the blender.

The cacao powder determines the chocolate's richness, Speziale says.

"So the powder is what gives it its intensity, the darkness," he says. "The more powder, the darker the chocolate taste."

After all the ingredients are blended, the couple do a taste test.

"The tasting process is important because the actual ingredients can change," Speziale says, such as cacao beans that go through different harvests.

"It's the best part," his wife says as they both take a spoonful of the chocolate mixture.

Once they are satisfied with the flavor, the liquid is transferred to a measuring cup and whisked before being poured into silicone chocolate molds. It's then placed in the freezer to "flash cool" for about 20 minutes, then moved to the refrigerator. The final step is packaging.

So far, the chocolates have been tried out on friends, family and Cadyn Speziale's co-workers at Better Thymes Natural Foods in Front Royal. The couple say they also made chocolates for their wedding guests when they got married last summer.

Since passing a recent kitchen inspection by the Department of Agriculture and obtaining their tax ID number, the two say they are ready to expand and hope to sell locally in natural food stores and similar establishments. The chocolates also can be ordered online at www.immortalmountain.com.

For now, the Speziales order or locally buy most of their ingredients, but are starting to grow herbs, nuts, fruits and vegetables on their land. Once they begin to harvest these, some will be used in the chocolates. Other chocolate varieties, like hazelnut, will likely be added to their line in the future, they say. The couple are even taking a trip to Panama this summer to visit cacao farmers, in hopes of finding someone to deal with directly for their main ingredient.

While Speziale refers to his wife as "the head chocolatier," he says his passion lies in gardening. He has planted everything from herbs to apple trees, and the couple plan to not only grow as many of their own ingredients as possible, but also to sell their produce at local farmers markets once they get larger yields.

"It's a chocolate company, but we have a bigger vision," Speziale says. "We're just starting."