Choc and Awe

We've all played Around the World with booze and basketballs, but who's tried it with chocolate? The Chocolate Sophisticate pitched us the idea and, well, since it involved free samples of chocolate, IT acquiesced.

Michel Cluizel's World Tour includes "flights" of chocolate from five locations: Madagascar, the Dominican Republic, São Tomé, Papua New Guinea, and Venezuela. We weren't given samples of the last two, but the three "countries" we tasted, did, in some sultry way, pique our wanderlust. Traveler contributing editor Andrew Nelson found the Caribbean chocolate "silky, like having your cheek lightly brushed by a woman's fingernails." IT's own Jessie Johnston called the São Tomé cocoa "complex—first smoky, then acidic, and buttery at the end." And her counterpart, Emily King, was drawn to the "tart, lemon-like flavor" of Madagascan chocolate, whose "lingering aftertaste transported my spirit to a sunny beach."

Now, if only this chocolate gave us a tan too...