Although you will not find Willy Wonka at this chocolate factory, Bryan and Dahlia Graham’s chocolate shop and production facility in Shokan is no less magical. The shop has been internationally awarded for its high-quality chocolate and revered for its environmentally-responsible business practices.
Fruition Chocolate Works was founded in 2011 by the Grahams who were inspired to start making chocolate by Bryan’s externship with Jacques Torres Chocolates in New York City. Bryan, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, began experimenting with crafting chocolate from cacao beans at home using a toaster and a hairdryer.
The production has, of course, grown since then, but the chocolate is still processed from bean to bar in one building alongside the Ashokan Reservoir, with Bryan and Dahlia ensuring the quality of the product every step of the way. On one end of the building, located at 3091 state Route 28, bags of cacao beans are stacked awaiting processing. On the other side, they are sold in the store as bars, bonbons, hot chocolate and ice cream sandwiches among many other confections.
Visitors who cannot believe that these decadent delicacies are crafted right in the next room can see the chocolatiers work their magic through a viewing window in the shop. Samples are also available for each of the bars so guests can select their perfect chocolate.
Bryan, the co-founder and creative director of the operation, has been dedicated to starting with quality ingredients since hand picking raspberries for pies at his grandmother’s farm in Andes as a child, to now traveling the world to hand pick only the best cacao suppliers. Bryan and Dahlia visit all of the farms that they source cacao beans from, which are located in Peru, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Colombia and Madagascar. The couple is committed to only sourcing sustainably - and ethically-harvested cacao, a practice that sets the company apart from other chocolate producers.
“You can get a bar of chocolate for $2 at the gas station, but you don’t know if you can trust their cocoa bean sourcing practices,” Dahlia, the CEO and co-founder of Fruition, said.
The beans, which are the harvested seeds of the cacao fruit, are fermented and dried in their country of origin before being shipped to Shokan. The first step once the beans arrive is to roast them. Fruition’s roasting process is somewhat unique in the chocolate world because they use a convection oven rather than a coffee bean roaster.
After being roasted, the beans must be winnowed to remove the husk. The winnowing machine — the industrial equivalent of their original hair dryer technique — cracks the bean and uses a fan to separate the light husks from the heavy beans. The beans, now known as cacao nibs, can be eaten after this stage and have a nutty flavor.
The beans are then refined and conched — a process in which heat and air are used to remove unwanted tannins and astringent flavors. Beans from different sources are processed separately to preserve the unique flavors of each bean, producing single-source chocolate.
“What we’re doing is we’re trying to highlight the nuances of the particular cacao, so some might be more of a citrus note, or more of a berry note, or more fruit forward or a little more earthy,” Dahlia said. “Kind of like wine or coffee, there’s nuance, and we’re trying to preserve that and showcase it as something of value.”
The final products vary from the bare basics of chocolate — cocoa beans, sugar and cocoa butter — to more complex recipes like their eight-time award-winning brown butter milk chocolate which features butter from Ronnybrook Farm in Ancramdale.
Most of the confections — like the miso maple almonds or the passion fruit caramels — use beans sourced from the Dominican Republic. Bryan explained that this is because their Dominican Republic chocolate is a “crowd pleaser” as it is not too bitter and not too fruity.
“It’s something that’s accessible to everybody,” Bryan said. “It’s just a very delicious, middle grade cacao.”
Having both grown up in the area, community connections are at the heart of Fruition’s operation. The Grahams have collaborated with many other local businesses for their own products and for other artisans’ goods. At the shop in Shokan, they sandwich Del’s Dairy Farm ice cream, which uses Fruition’s products in their chocolate flavor, between two of their flourless chocolate cookies for their ice cream sandwiches.
A collaboration with Westwind Orchard in Accord has yielded four orchard-inspired chocolate flavors using Westwind’s crops including apple granola, raspberry, red chili and pumpkin.
Fruition’s local roots have embedded their products at many iconic Catskill businesses, and visitors may find the name popping up in unexpected places like in the Phoenicia Diner’s hot chocolate, West Kill Brewing’s chocolate stout or Peekamoose’s chocolate mousse.
While small batch bean-to-bar chocolate is not easy or cheap to make, the Grahams’ effort has been proven worthwhile as their chocolate has stood out among the best of the best at international chocolate competitions. Fruition Chocolate has collected over 70 awards throughout the years, including several dozen international competition awards, for both their luxurious flavors and their commitment to ethical chocolate production. Bryan was also named one of the top 10 chocolatiers in the U.S. by Dessert Professional magazine in 2013.
These world-renowned confections can be found at the shop in Shokan along with a variety of other local products. They have also spread to over 600 locations throughout the country including local businesses; Whole Foods in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut; New York state welcome centers; and John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia Airports. The chocolate can even be found in a few international locations in Canada and Europe.
Chocolate can also be purchased online at fruitionchocolateworks.com
