Chocolate With a Kick

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Mexico is better known for its chili than its confections, but true candy connoisseurs will go muy loco for a bar of Ki'Xocolatl or Ibarra Mexican chocolate.

That's because Indian tribes in and around Southern Mexico invented chocolate in the first place some 3,000 years ago.

Westerners only got in the act in the 16th century, when the Aztecs shared the unsweetened cocoa drink they called xocolatl ("bitter water") with Spanish conquistadors.

The Europeans and their American progeny eventually figured out how to turn cocoa beans into Whitman's Samplers, but Mexicans typically consume their chocolate as a drink even today.

"There is eating chocolate in Mexico, but that's relatively modern and most of it is produced by foreign multinational companies," says cocoa cognoscente Clay Gordon of TheChocolateLife.com. "Traditionally, chocolate in Mexico has been consumed as a beverage (partly because of) a lack of refrigeration."

Mexican chocolate comes with flecks of cocoa and granulated sugar that help it stay firm at temperatures above cocoa butter's melting point. Consumers usually melt hunks of it in hot water or milk to create a great cup of cocoa.

You can also eat Mexican chocolate straight out of the box, but its sugar and cocoa chunks often give the product a coarse consistency that's something of an acquired taste.

"Most (Mexican chocolate) that is sold in the United States is purchased by people of Mexican nationality or descent," Gordon says. "People who are chocolate aficionados will purchase it to understand what it is, but probably are not repeat, significant buyers."

Mexican chocolate also comes in flavors non-Mexicans aren't used to, like chili pepper.

"Hot peppers (in candy) may seem new to us, but their use in chocolate reaches far back into the past before the arrival of Europeans in the New World," Gordon says. "There were very few sources of natural sweeteners in the diet before Europeans came, so the Maya and Aztecs used what (flavorings) they could find locally."

Flavors more familiar to the non-Mexican palate include vanilla and allspice, two products native to Latin America.