Tony’s Chocolonely Chocolate Bar with Pretzel & Toffee Review
Better than a hurricane.
Welp. I bought these chocolate bars a year and a half ago, and forgot I had them. So now I’m going to review them for you. Better late than never.
Unless you’re a hurricane. And then you’re better never than late. Please.
Anyway. These Tony’s Chocolonely Belgian chocolate bars came in a set of 4 from Amazon. These are thick, chonky, heavy slabs. Possibly the thickest chocolate bar I’ve eaten in a while. If you like gnawing on big chunks of chocolate, you will probably like this.
If you don’t like gnawing on chocolate … well, just go away! Be gone. I banish thee to some other blog, somewhere in the distant interwebs.
Just kidding. You can stay.
One of the things I appreciate about Tony’s Chocolonely packaging is that the chocolate is sealed in an air-tight foil capsule. That may not seem important, but it kept my chocolate much fresher than typical folded foil-lined paper, even after a year and a half of storage in my hot Florida house. More about that later.
The chocolate in this bar is a combination of milk and dark, so it has a lot more sweetness than traditional dark chocolate. It’s supposedly 42% dark, which honestly means nothing to me. But, numbers are cool. You know.
If you prefer sweet chocolate, you will probably love this. I’m more “team dark,” so I found it slightly more sugary than I like. It doesn’t have the deep theobromine kick of darker chocolate. There’s a lot more “milky” taste than “cocoa butter” taste. Still delicious.
One of the fun perks of this product is the design of the bar itself. Instead of a boring, predictable grid, you get a crazy-quilt of idiosyncratic segments in different sizes and shapes. No two pieces are the same. I don’t know why this makes it so much more fun to eat, but it does. Especially the random long shapes for no reason. I would think Florida Man was behind this brand, but unfortunately not. It turns out the founder of “Tony’s Chocolonely” is a Dutch journalist named “Teun.” Hmmph.
The chocolate has a smooth exterior, but a softer, more crumbly interior. Compared to other chocolate varieties, this one is “less crisp.” It doesn’t “snap” when you break it. It has a slightly pliable texture, and perhaps not as dense as other chocolate brands. Probably from the milk solids. Not bad, just an observation.
Here are some of the pretzel pieces in a chocolate chunk. The pretzels are OK. They weren’t as crispy or flavorful as I had hoped — even before my chocolate expired. The toffee bits are also much softer than I expected; they actually remind me a lot of the nougat bits in Toblerone. Not crunchy toffee. Soft toffee? I like this fine, it’s just different than I expected. The chocolate has a pleasant saltiness behind the sweetness, which I loved.
The broken chain motif molded into the bar is part of the Tony’s Chocolonely brand identity. The wrapper includes information on their efforts to eliminate slavery and exploitation within the chocolate industry. My bar says it is a minimum 73% fair trade. So, 27% unfair?
Nutrition Facts in Pretzel & Toffee Chocolate Bar by Tony’s Chocolonely
Supposedly, there are 6 servings per bar, of slightly more than 1 ounce each. If you eat substantially more than one ounce of chocolate at a time, raise your hand.
That’s what I thought. Carry on.
Ingredients in Tony’s Chocolonely Chocolate Bar
Here’s a complete list of the ingredients:
- Sugar
- Chocolate liquor
- Dry whole milk
- Cocoa butter
- Pretzel crumbs (wheat flour salt, sunflower oil, malted wheat flour, yeast, sodium hydroxide)
- Caramel pieces (sugar, glucose syrup [wheat]
- Sea salt
- Soy lecithin
Not bad. No artificial flavors or weird stuff. Clearly not a gluten free or vegan item, but fairly natural and straightforward.
This is imported from Belgium.
Storage and Shelf-life
The label specifically says not to store in the fridge, but I did anyway, after unwrapping. Don’t tell me what to do! I actually like this chocolate better chilled — it becomes crisper and has a better, smoother texture, IMHO. Because there is no foiled paper to fold this into, I put mine in a stylish ziplock bag to keep it fresh. I’m just classy like that.
My chocolate had 100% expired by the time I wrote this review. In fact, it expired more than a year ago. In fact, I bought it in April of 2022, and it had an expiration date of June 2022, which is kind of a bummer. That only gave me two months to consume 25.4 ounces of chocolate. Yes, I used my incredible math skills to determine that.
Fortunately, the honey badger don’t care about expired chocolate. I’m eating it anyway. Even 1.3 years past expiration, my chocolate is still fresh-tasting and unspoilt. There’s the slightest white “bloom” on some parts of the exterior, and the caramel has softened where it is exposed to air, but otherwise, it’s completely fresh. I give some credit to that air-tight foil wrapper!
Price and Servings
I bought Tony’s Chocolonely 42% Milk Dark Chocolate Bar with Pretzels & Toffee from Amazon. I don’t get paid to tell you that. These are not affiliate links, either. Nobody is paying me, my dudes.
The chocolate is sold in a pack of four 6.35 ounce bars for ~$17, which is $4.25 per bar. That’s a decent value, due to the size/weight of each bar. Per ounce, this costs $0.67.
Tony’s Chocolonely makes a whole collection of other chocolate bar flavors. You can find sample packs at Target, such as this variety sampler. Or, you can try the “Assorted Tiny Chocolates” bag from World Market. Check the expiration date before buying, however!
More Reviews of Chocolate Treats You Might Like (or Hate)
Check out these other reviews of chocolate sweets I’ve recently written:
Author’s note: I have no affiliation with Tony’s Chocolonely, Amazon, Target, or World Market, and I wasn’t compensated in any way for this review.
