Le Blog

Spotlight on Catherine, from one of our favorite suppliers

The Perfect Puree has been a constant as long as Chocolats Passion has been in business.  Our top selling chocolate, Passion Vanilla, uses their fabulous  passion fruit as the base.  There

Meet our new Lead Chocolatier!

Our team is thrilled to announce that Sarah Levine has been promoted to Lead Chocolatier!  Ever since Sarah joined us almost two years ago, she has blazed a trail of masterful competence i

Closing on another COVID year...

                                                                                     Photo Credit Jonathan Nutt Our team is exhausted from our intense holiday season, but we feel very luck

Creating...

Photo credit Winky Lewis Every fall, we introduce a new menu.  Our team has extensive discussions as to what chocolates to cycle out of the lineup, and what new tastes to introduce.  Since

Three Years at 189 Brackett!

September 12 marked our third birthday at 189 Brackett!  Half that time was marked by the pandemic, but our team is stronger for the pivoting  and having had to adapt.  At least, our busine

An Ode to Mendiants, courtesy of Sweet on Maine!

Photo credit Winky Lewis Karen Watterson, the editor of the iconic 'Eat Drink Lucky' daily posts, also writes a blog dedicated to her favorite food group, dessert!  Sweet on Maine covers t

Shop will be closed July 26-August 17, BUT you can still get your chocolate!

  September 12 will mark our third anniversary at 189 Brackett!  We have seen the demand for our ever expanding offerings explode over those 34 months, creating shortages at every chocolate

Downeast's Best of Maine, final round!

We wish to extend our warm thanks to those of you who nominated us in the first round of Downeast Magazine's 2021 Best of Maine survey.  We are so thrilled to now be a finalist in the "Mai

The Lost Kitchen... and us!

A month ago, my darling neighbor Desi van Til gifted a box of our chocolates to Erin French of the iconic Lost Kitchen.  Not long after, TLK approached us to see if we would be willing to h

Eggs! Bunnies! Repeat!

Pack up the heart molds, polish the eggs!  Thematically, the switch from Valentine production to Easter is swift.  This year, the early Easter date (April 4) makes speed even more necessar

Preparing for V day

Photo credit Sarah Levine The time span between the holidays and Valentine day is the shortest of all the major chocolate holidays, and as such imposes absolute production discipline on ou

A big win for the team!

Back in March, three weeks before the pandemic shutdown, a young woman entered the shop and asked if we were hiring.  As serendipity would have it, we were, but I told her we were looking

Our Skulls - by the Green Man Review!

The following entry is a reprint (with the kind permission of the editors of the Green Man review) of the most fun review of our Halloween Skulls.  Enjoy! Chocolats Passion Skulls Skulls. I

Spreading the word...

 An eternity ago, back before the pandemic and the shutdown,  I was invited to speak at Mechanics' Hall, as part of their Makers' series.  I saw it as a great opportunity to provide a quic

Kindness is wearing a mask!

We are very fortunate that our state's leadership has provided clear, science-based guidance regarding COVID-19 avoidance.  Our low rates of infection mean that our economy can safely reope

Our New Normal, part 3

Our first week back was the best!  First, we saw so many of our regulars, who were as excited as we were for the reopening.  The sense of joy in being able to reconnect is so real.  We shar

Paying it forward!

The last ten weeks were intense for our little business.  They encompassed Easter and Mother's Day, two important chocolate holidays, which generated a huge number of orders from customers

Our New Normal, part 2

                                                                                      (Winky Lewis Photography) The City of Portland has issued a stay at home directive, effective tomorrow

Our New Normal

     After much thought, we are starting this week with a new protocol in our shop.  We wanted to set up measures that totally meet the social distancing imperative while recognizing that

Sweet Valentine

We are so lucky at 189 Brackett Street.  We love our customers, and our customers love us.  At no time was this more obvious than during the Valentine season. First, we were serenaded!  Fou

Thank you for a great season!

I am writing this entry while on our short January break, which started on New Year's  Eve and ends this Wednesday.  Looking back, the five weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year were a bl

And the little turkeys came and went...

Our little team started to plan for the holiday season in October.  Now that we had year-to-year numbers, we naively thought we would be able to gauge demand.  Or perhaps not, as we found w

Halloween Critters

Our customers were already in love with our Baby Dragons and the Scary Pumpkins, but nothing could prepare them for the skulls we unveiled this year.  Skulls with BRAINS mind you...  The go

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