PRINTVisions of a Chocolatier
Alicia Schamburg
Columbia-based microbatch chocolatier Alan Patrick McClure shows off a scoopful of his cacao pods, hand-picked and imported from Madagascar. As the owner of Patric Chocolate, he will spend three months extracting the notes of flavor from the cacao beans to produce his dark chocolate.
February 11, 2009 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Step into Alan Patrick McClure’s office, which leads into a storage room filled with bundles of hand-picked cacao beans. Step into his life, where hours of each day are spent monitoring his creations. And step into his world, where chocolate is a delicacy to be appreciated and consumed like fine wine. “It’s good to have excellent chocolate on hand so you can eat a square or two every once in a while, similar to how a glass of wine every night is relaxing and good for you as long as you don’t abuse it,” says McClure, 29, founder of Columbia’s Patric Chocolate. “My chocolate is something you can enjoy and, at the same time, improve your quality of life mentally and physically.”
With his tattooed arms, scruffy goatee and dark-rimmed glasses, McClure gives off more of an alternative, edgy vibe instead of conforming to the traditional white-coated chef stereotype. His goal to modify society’s understanding and interpretation of chocolate falls in line with his unconventional style. “Cacao is such a complex product, and most people don’t realize its amazing essence because when they think chocolate, they think candy,” McClure says. And he says his chocolate is no piece of candy. “I consider candy to be a confection, and I don’t think of my chocolate as a confection because I think of it as chocolate — pure, excellent, hand-created chocolate.”
McClure’s entire chocolate-making process takes about three months to go from Madagascar bean to bar.
McClure’s knowledge and appreciation for cacao has given life to a new generation of delicacies in the form of his dark chocolate bars. In January 2007, McClure revitalized the saying “sweet success” when he opened his business. He was intent on changing chocolate from a sweet-tooth craving into a true art form. “I want my customers to taste something unlike anything they have ever tasted before,” McClure says. “That is the kind of experience I want to get out of people.”
Chocolate conception
To grasp McClure’s vision for starting Patric Chocolate, knowing where his love of food comes from is key.
Rewind 26 years to when McClure was 3 years old watching his grandmother make fresh tortillas on a griddle and eating a food most children wouldn’t touch — spicy homemade salsa. Ten years later, McClure bought a cookbook with his own money and frequently watched cooking shows during summers. Then, at age 14, McClure put his skills to the test by trying to master a difficult recipe. “I made real butter croissants to take into my French class,” McClure says. “Not to brag, but they were so good that no one believed that I made them. The truth is that I made them without help from anyone. Why? Because I have a true passion for excellent food.”
His excitement and curiosity for food only grew stronger as years passed. In 2003 while living in France for a year, McClure stayed with a chef for a couple of months. “This experience opened up my mind to what chocolate could be and where it has yet to go,” McClure says. In the summer of 2004, after McClure returned to the U.S., his journey with chocolate began. “I experimented with chocolate, read old books about the science of chocolate, tasted different kinds of chocolate and kept notes on my findings on a daily basis,” he explains. At this point, researching chocolate was a hobby. But the idea of starting a chocolate-making company became more appealing as the prospect of finding his dream job began to dwindle. “There were no jobs on the market for religious studies majors, and I needed a job,” McClure says. “I knew I loved food, so I thought, ‘Well, if I can’t find a job, I might as well make one for myself.’”
Patric’s birth
In March 2006, after months of personal study and experimentation with chocolate, McClure decided to dip into the chocolate-making industry. “I felt like I could make the best chocolate in the world,” he says. A sudden rush of fear soon surfaced. “I thought I was insane to think I could build a business from the ground up.” But once the anxiety subsided, and with the help of inheritance money, McClure committed to his passion. “I worked seven days a week during that time to get things in place,” he explains. “From the time I finished breakfast to the time I went bed, I was working.”
Ten months later in January 2007, Patric Chocolate was born. The story behind the name is unconventional. “It’s just my middle name, Patrick, without the letter ‘K’ because the Irish aren’t well-known for their chocolate,” McClure explains. “If I was selling whiskey, beer or Lucky Charms, Patrick would have worked out just fine, but the name Patrick sounds too Irish.”
Madagascar masterpieces
Patric Chocolate products are created in Suite 109, which is located in a strip of buildings at 6601 Stephens Station Road in northern Columbia. McClure says his location, which is not a storefront, fits his needs both financially and practically.
He carefully selects cacao beans from samples he receives based on their genetic stock and quality of fermentation at the beginning of each new 50-pound micro-batch. “You can make terrible chocolate out of great cacao, but you can never make great chocolate out of terrible cacao,” he says.
McClure prides himself on being a single-origin bean-to-bar chocolate maker, which means his chocolate is made directly from the fermented and dried cacao beans imported from Madagascar. “I chose Madagascar cacao beans because of their flavor,” McClure says. “It’s exceptional.” Once the cacao beans arrive, McClure adds his own special touch, which consists of paying close attention to the aroma and flavor in each stage of the process. “I’m the driving force behind what this product becomes,” he says. “The end product is based on my taste and my vision of what it should be.” From sorting and roasting the beans to aging and individually wrapping the end product, each batch of roughly 450 bars takes approximately one to three months to create, depending on the differing aging times required to achieve McClure’s goals with each type of dark chocolate.
After months of 12- to 20-hour days of solo work, McClure’s first professional dark chocolate creation was released in July 2007 — the 70 percent Madagascar bar, which contains 30 percent sugar. As McClure’s dream became a reality, he gained momentum, and in February 2008, Patric Chocolate released its second line of dark chocolate bars, the 67 percent Madagascar bar. This bar, unlike its predecessor, contains cocoa butter extracted from cacao of the same origin as well as more sugar. “I roast the cacao beans for these bars differently to maintain a more fruit-forward flavored profile,” McClure says. “The 67 percent bar is not as robust as the 70 percent bar, but the fruit aroma shines and is heightened.”
McClure stresses that cacao and sugar are the only two ingredients in his creations. The taste elicited from his chocolate is from his gut-driven intuition. “I have created chocolate that is beautiful and unique with the quality of ingredients I use and the understanding of what my product needs to taste like; the vision underlying this — you can’t teach that.”
Kimberly Griffin, co-owner of Root Cellar, a local retailer who carries Patric Chocolate bars, trusts McClure’s palette. “The bars are always up to Alan’s standards, which are very high,” Griffin says. “Any chocolate that meets his standards is good enough for me.” The average price per chocolate bar is $5.75, and they are sold at four Columbia stores.
Bright future
The Patric Chocolate family now includes four part-time employees. “Working for Patric Chocolate is pretty neat because I’m learning something new every day,” says Chris Giroux, the first employee hired in June 2008. “It’s fascinating to see the raw product turn into the finished product. How anyone ever figured out how to get something this lovely from cacao beans that originally smell like vinegar is amazing.”
McClure says that business is going very well, and due to greater appeal of chocolate during the holidays, he anticipates good sales for the month of February. He is hoping to cover costs and have enough money to invest back in the business. “I want to be successful enough to fund further growth of my company — to me, that’s successful,” he says.
In addition to expanding the common perception of chocolate, McClure hopes to advocate for local business owners. “The more I’m around the community, the more I want to stay and make Columbia a true home base for Patric Chocolate,” McClure says. “Hopefully I can play some role in gaining support for local business owners who are doing interesting things in regards to food.”
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