Montezuma’s Monkey Bars – Review

Montezuma’s is a family owned British chocolate company. They have recently launched 5 new ‘Monkey Bars’ to celebrate the best of British and the upcoming Royal Jubilee and Olympics. These Monkey Bars are not your typical bars of chocolate.

To start with, their packaging is decorated with iconic images of Britain/London, such as London taxis, The Houses of Parliament, Welsh Dragon and The London Eye. Montezuma’s has also had a bit of fun with the names, using the eccentric English Cockney rhyming slang to give each of the 5 bars its own unique name! Adam & Eve (Believe), Airs & Graces (Races), Daisy Roots (Boots), Nanny Goat (Boat) and Shake & Shiver (River). Hehe.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I recently opened the door to be presented with a package from Montezuma’s, containing two of their new Monkey Bars to try! I had no idea they were coming and so it was a lovely surprise. What was even more of a surprise was the whopping size of the bars. These are not your average 100g bars of chocolate – oh no. Each bar weights half a kilo – 500g of thick chocolate and it’s larger than an iPad – I couldn’t ‘adam and eve my apple pies’ (believe my eyes)!

The bar is formed into squares just like a regular bar of chocolate, only each square is incredibly thick and weighs an impressive 33g! That’s about a third of a standard bar in each square! Yikes!

Just look at the size difference! I was sent Nanny Goat (milk chocolate with salted peanuts and butterscotch) and Shake & Shiver (Dark chocolate with peppermint and cocoa nibs).

My chocolate preference is always for dark chocolate and so I loved Shake & Shiver. The dark chocolate was of a good quality, rich and slightly bitter thanks to the little nibs of coco bean scattered throughout. The peppermint flavour was apparent, but not overpowering or unnatural tasting. I also liked how the slight crunch came from the cocoa nibs rather than lumps of sugar. So many companies seem to put sugar crystals into mint chocolate and I can’t stand crunching down on a raw lump of sugar, so bonus points to Montezuma’s. The perfect bar to bring out after dinner when you want something ‘minty’

The Nanny Goat bar unfortunately contained ‘wheat syrup’ which after a discussion with the Montezuma’s team I was advised not to eat, which was a shame, but the rest of my family were more than happy to taste (devour) the bar on my behalf. I am told the chocolate was ‘creamy with a good flavour’ and found it had a much higher cocoa content than most standard milk chocolates. The tasters also thought ‘the mix of salty nuts and sweet butterscotch really went well together’

Thank you Montezuma’s for making me smile with unexpected chocolate goodies. The bars would certainly be ‘Robin Hood’ (good) at friend and family gatherings. You could try eating a whole bar yourself, but you’d probably want to do a few runs up the ‘apple and pears’ (stairs) afterwards!

Click to see more examples of Cockney rhyming slang words