Koch is an Estonian alcohol producer who has been featured on this blog several times. Their business idea is to produce various liqueurs and alcohols as cheaply as possible and sell them to the same owner, SuperAlko and CityAlko alcohol stores in Estonia and on the Estonian-Latvian border. There is no information about Koch chocolate liqueur on the manufacturer’s website; it is on sale for about € 4 in 50 cl bottles.

The smell has chocolate, as you might expect. Soft and pleasant, a little sweet. When sniffing closely, the slightly pungent fumes of ethanol also come lightly. The mouthfeel is not very liqueur-like, rather watery and sweet. The taste has chocolate, of course, but not as cocoa beans and greasy as in more expensive cocoa/chocolate liqueurs. Rather, it is a mixture of sugar syrup, water and ethanol with a slight chocolate essence. The taste is amazingly short. The aroma of the chocolate lingers on the tongue for a few seconds until it disappears and the aftertaste remains a sugar-like or perhaps artificial sweetener-like tinge and a slight dry and bitter tingling of ethanol. The sweetness level is just right for sipping neat, not too sweet but sweet enough that the burn of ethanol has been masked.

Koch Chocolate is exactly what you would expect from a €4 liqueur. A mixture of sugar and ethanol with a hint of promised chocolate. It’s quite a pleasant sip for one serving, but for another, the slightly bitter taste of the chocolate essence starts to annoy. It gives a very light chocolate nuance to drinks, so if you can’t find a better one, it can be used for Brandy Alexander at least.

67/100