We've been Canada's chocolatier since 1907, when barber-by-trade Richard Carmon Purdy founded a chocolate shop in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia.
Today, we're inspired by all the flavourful fruits, wines, syrups, berries and dishes you can enjoy throughout Canada—although we probably won't ever come out with a poutine chocolate…Sorry?
We asked chocolatier Rachel McKinley, who created all of the chocolates featured in our special Canadian Escapes gift box, to tell us a little bit more about each one.
Rachel McKinley: "This collection's so special to me, it's one of my favourite things we've done recently at Purdys. It's really like taking a trip across Canada.
Sake & Sakura is a tribute to Vancouver's Sakura Cherry Blossom Festivals. Cherry trees in bloom is one of the best things about Vancouver in the spring. The sake (rice wine) comes from an artisan Japanese sake maker in Granville Island, a popular landmark and tourist destination in the city of Vancouver.
Then you have Ocean Peach which to me is basically the West Coast in chocolate form. There's juicy peach puree, freeze-dried peaches and peach schnapps (I'm crazy about Okanagan peaches, they're so good!) and a bit of salt to get that hint of the ocean and the breeze on a hot summer day.
I'm really attached to Saskatoon Berry. I'm from the Prairies and I grew up with dumplings made with Saskatoon berries and served with cream sauce. So that was my inspiration for this piece. It's a white chocolate and Saskatoon berry juice ganache in a dark chocolate shell. So good.
And then there's White Spruce, which is all about Manitoba (my hometown) and that fresh icy air that you get when you're out hiking in the winter. It's dark chocolate with peppermint and white spruce oils. I've talked about how much I love it before and we're getting a lot of great feedback on the whole collection.
I've been exploring and playing around with lot more Canadian flavours—birch syrup is my current obsession—so we're definitely working on adding a lot more chocolates like these to our lineup and continuing to celebrate the things that make us unique. We're probably not going to come out with a poutine chocolate but hey, I'm open to it."
