| Chocolate liquor | |
| Alternate Name: | Cocoa liquor, cocoa paste |
| Type: | Chocolate |
| Main Ingredient: | Cocoa beans |
Chocolate liquor, also called cocoa liquor, is pure cocoa in liquid or semi-solid form.[1] It is produced from cocoa bean nibs that have been fermented, dried, roasted, and separated from their skins. The nibs are ground into a paste which is melted to become the liquor, and the liquor is either separated into cocoa solids and cocoa butter, or cooled and molded into blocks of raw chocolate. Like the nibs from which it is produced, it contains both cocoa solids and cocoa butter in roughly equal proportion.[2] Its main use (often with additional cocoa butter) is in making chocolate.
The name liquor is used not in the sense of a distilled, alcoholic substance, but rather the older meaning of the word, meaning 'liquid' or 'fluid'.
Chocolate liquor contains roughly 53 percent cocoa butter (fat), about 17 percent carbohydrates, 11 percent protein, 6 percent tannins, and 1.5 percent theobromine.[3]