Why is a blog on men’s style talking about chocolates?

Simply because chocolates make a superb gift for women. Stylish men know their chocolates.

Recently a number of good chocolates have have come to market and, full disclosure here, I met the founder of Sir Hans Sloane at a luxury goods symposium. He offered to send me some samples of his chocolates and I took this opportunity to review them.

Sir Hans Sloane chocolates
I like the fact that the brand is called Sir Hans Sloane, after the original inventor of chocolate. It makes it clear that the brand knows its history and affirms its connection with the luxury chocolate tradition. The brand image feels authoritative and discriminating.

Sir Hans Sloane is the brainchild of Bill McCarrick, who is variously a chocolatier, chef, and member of the international Academy of Chocolate. Bill trained in Switzerland and Austria, the traditional homes of luxury chocolate. He has worked and studied in in Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Bali and Dubai and of course England. Working as a chef and chocolatier in all of these places Bill explored the local cusines and experimented with local products and tastes in his quest to produce excellent chocolate.

I have left out big chunks of Bill’s impressive resume but by 2001 he was head of production for all chocolate, bakery and pastry products at Harrods. In July 2006 Bill created the first Sir Hans Sloane chocolate in the kitchen of his home. From here he went on to win a Gold award for his organic dark chocolate at the 2007 World Chocolate Awards.

In person Bill is gently spoke and quietly humourous. Listening to him is an inspiring experience and a masterclass in chocolate connoisseurship. If you want to tour the chocolate studio and hear Bill speak you can sign up at the website here. http://www.sirhanssloane.com/

Making Chocolate
There are two secrets to great chocolate. The first is the beans.

Sir hans Sloane are meticulous about selecting only those cocoa beans that they think will be good enough for their chocolate. They select from a limited number of estates that meet their criteria for taste and quality. This concentration ensures a consistent quality and taste.

Second is of course the the chocolate making process. Sir Hans Sloane’s chocolate-making studio is situated near the old Brooklands racetrack in Surrey. Here they make their chocolates. They start with their own carefully controlled conching process. Conching is the process whereby the cocoa liqueur is kneaded and rolled over time to produce a silky liquid to which the Chocolatier (step forward Bill) adds Cocoa Butter and other flavourings to make what is called Couverture, the raw chocolate. To my knowledge, Sir Hans Sloane is the only chocolate company in England which produces its own Couverture.

Like a good winemaker creating a vintage, a chocolatier gently conchs his raw Cocoa liqueur. Bill McCarrick conchs his over three days, compared to some other Couvertures which are boiled to completion in only six hours. Bill’s slow conching allows him to cook the Couverture slowly, preserving the deep, subtle flavours of the chocolate.

Once the Couverture is made, bill creates the final chocolate, using the flavours and ingredients he has made his own. The final product is quality chocolate and pralines.

Seeing is believing
So what are the chocolates like?

Firstly they look good. Sir Hans Sloane pralines come packaged in white boxes with red trim, with matching red typography. The boxes are very well-made being high-quality paper over board, bound by a corded ribbon. The look is artisan, expensive and stylishly adult, without fussiness or overpackaging.

The individual pralines are finely made, with no chocolate spills or unevenness. A further nice touch is that they have the legend “Sir Hans Sloane” printed on the underside in edible white type. I would like to know how they do that.

Tasting is believing
So I arranged an informal chocolate tasting. I represented the men and three female friends gave a woman’s assessment. The pralines were the “Artists Pralines” set with each praline flavour named after a classical artist.

The first taste was that of the chocolate itslef, which was silky smooth. The dark chocolate had a rich flavour but without the bitter bite some chocolates have. The chocolates released their taste slowly into the mouth. The flavour was luxurious.

Then came the flavouring, distinctive and subtle. The coffee-flavoured “Caravaggio” had a full roasted arabica-bean taste, without any harshness. The almond-flavoured “Goya” was finesse itself, creamy and nutty. Only the vanilla-flavoured “Gauguin” felt a little over-flavoured.

The third pleasure was the texture, each reflecting the flavour. “Caravaggio” came out tops here, with a wonderful understated crunchiness, that tasted of coffee beans.

All of this combined to give the pralines a fine clean taste which left the flavours, not the chocolate, in the mouth. Rich in flavour but light in the mouth, they left us with a feeling of having our palettes cleansed.

Chocolate Gifts
If you want to give chocolates as a gift, then giving Sir Hans Sloane shows that you know chocolate and know what you are doing. One of my female friends pointed out that women would recognise the quality inherent in these chocolates and feel very special if given Sir Hans Sloane as a gift.

If you are looking for an even more exclusive, more personal gift, Sir Hans Sloane has a bespoke chocolate service. Bill McCarrick will use his expertise on your behalf to create a signature chocolate, for you alone. This would be a truly stylish gift to give.

Good stuff chocolate, its another weapon in your style armoury.

Sir Hans Sloane is here. www.sirhanssloane.com

 Now this really is style on a budget! 

This is a lively, zesty Cote Du Rhone Villages from Wine Discoveries.  Very smooth, but with a big flavour, lots of blackberry and raspberry flavours with a fruity, peppery aftertaste.  This is a wine with obvious strength but also a good degree of finesse. 

Great for dinner parties but even better if you want to hand out some drinking wine that will get noticed.   This wine will be a staple in my cellar and at £6.99 they are giving it away.

What very few men realise is that Women love all gifts.  They love presents, whether they it is a postcard or a pearl necklace.  However small (or large) it is, it shows that you have been thinking about them.   

 A man always enjoys buying gifts for women, it is one of the most pleasant ways to spend money.  Check back with us for further articles on stylish gifts for woman (for all budgets).    

I first discovered Ernest Hemingway when I was sixteen.  

School was busy feeding me a diet of politically correct kitchen sink novels that I was supposed to “identify” with.  Poor kids growing up in rough neighbourhoods, against a backdrop of bad weather and alcoholic parents.  I hated all them all. 

Hemingway was a revelation.  He wrote about things I knew about, like boxing and fishing.  He wrote about them with a concise grace, describing their essential beauty.  He wrote in short, stripped down sentences, rythmic, trying to isolate the truth of every sentence.   Love, sport and manliness dignified in literature. 

Hemingway was my introduction to manly style.  His worldly, grizzled men, equally at ease in Paris and Pamplona, had a style that I wanted to emulate.  His women were beautiful and unsettling, often the equal of the men they were in love with, yet compromised by that love, compelled to act against their own best interests.      

Hemingway’s men are a combination of action and reflection.  Hemingway’s men are stoic yet I am always amazed at how much they feel.  The sensitivity of Nick Adams, the hero of  The first 49 Stories, the compassion of Harry Morgan in To Have and Have Not. 

Hemingway had a style that was complex and lived out both in real life and his books.  Read the books first, then delve into his life.  He contributed to my style, to both good and bad effect.     

I have his picture on my blog and I have more to write about him and his books.    

Style is a way of life, it is embedded in everything you say and do.  Style is a way of announcing your presence in the game of life.  A way of claiming your individuality in an over-busy anonymous world. In my opinion your style is the totality of who you are.   Your behaviour, your manners, your clothes, your interests, your passions and your loves.  But let’s be clear, style is about standing out in the world, being an individual.  Style is about competition, for jobs, women, status and the freedom to be yourself.      Style and Image consultants talk about how men who employ them to discover what their style and image is and to help them make the most of themselves.  They talk about the men who “get it”, who understand that their style will help them reach their goals.  That style is important, that it sets you free.  This blog is about style, mine and yours.  What Makes a Man is here to help with the questions and difficulties of men’s lives and I hope you will join me on this journey.  Welcome, men and women, to What Makes a Man, the blog of men’s lives, men’s style. 

I have just received my copy of “Manliness” by Harvey C Mansfield.   This study of what constitutes manliness is a timely addition to our current debate about men and manliness.  I will publish a full review in the near future.

                   Jeffrey Foucault  -  Ghost Repeater 

I have been playing this for some time now and it is superb.  Jeffrey Foucault is an American singer-songwriter who has been consistently getting better with each album, and with Ghost Repeater he has reached a peak.  This is an album that has no parallel and few equals.  It has some alt-country heritage but his passionate, accessible songs and his trenchant vocals make this album a rich pleasure and easy to listen to.  

Foucault has a great American voice, deep, gravelly, distinctive and terse.  His songs are passionate and funny and great rock music, full of structure and punch, drawing you into the song.  He has been compared to early Springsteen and has that same skill of making brave stories out of ordinary people’s lives.       

Sparse tight arrangements back Foucault’s resonant vocals making his songs sound fresh and new.  The pedal steel guitar on songs like “Americans in Corduroys” are sublime.  There is not a bad track here, though “Ghost Repeater”, “Americans in Corduroys” and “One for Sorrow” are standouts.     

He sings of lost lovers, honeymoons and wild crazy men.  His men are American romantics, on the road, in love, tough and tender.  He has that way of telling how men feel, wry, funny and true.  Saying an album is poetic is the kiss of death but this album is both poetic and soulful.  The music is timeless and will take you to a place where men know that the only road is to follow their dreams, and the only weapons are courage and a sense of humour.  

You can listen to this album at twilight at the end of a bad day with a scotch in your hand, and it will make you feel whole again.  You can listen to this album sitting on the sofa, with you best girl tucked into your shoulder and she will think you are romantic and cool.  But be warned, once she’s heard it, she will steal it.  

Foucault’s that good.               

Savile Row.

It’s time to buy a suit from Savile Row. As a stylish man working in London I really owe it to myself to experience the best the city has to offer.

I want the whole Savile Row experience. I want to browse styles with the help of the real experts, Savile Row tailors who can give me the benefit of their knowledge and experience. I want the pleasure of choosing suit fabrics from amongst the best available. Savile Row tailors are legendary for being able to see what style, cut and cloth suit a man, just by looking at him. It is said that no-one tailors a suit as well as a Savile Row tailor and that sounds like something every man should experience.

But which Savile Row tailor? I have bought bespoke many times but have been told that Savile Row is “different”. The Row encompasses a wide spectrum of tailors and tailoring styles and it’s difficult to understand all the subtleties of Savile Row tailoring without a little research.  As a stylish man I have a working knowledge of suits and tailoring, including Savile Row. However I decided to do a little more research. This article http://www.englishcut.com/archives/000029.html by Thomas Mahon, who writes the excellent English Cut blog was helpful. So was window-shopping the various tailors.   My conclusion was that Thomas Mahon is right, buying from Savile Row is very much a personal choice. So, with that as my disclaimer, here are my personal preferences.

Gieves and Hawkes

Gieves and Hawkes is a British company with a proud history. Today they preserve several traditions, including tailoring military uniforms, as well as gentlemen’s suits. Their style is classically British, with a firm line to the suit. Gieves and Hawkes suits have a very defined shape and their silhouette is what one thinks of as a “British” suit, very structured, quite a “hard” cut.

They were my first stop, because I had bought ready-to wear suits from them in the past. In my experience their suits are superbly made. Amongst others, I bought a double-breasted charcoal-grey pinstripe from them in the days when double-breasted suits were fashionable. That suit was one of the best investments I ever made. I wore it for ten years and it never went out of shape, never looked old. I could dry-clean it and it would look like new. It was a great business suit, perfect for the City. My reasoning was that if their ready-to-wear was that good, then their bespoke would be even better.

The other reason I am fond of Gieves and Hawkes is that two years ago I visited their concession in Harvey Nichols department store to buy a topcoat. In the end I did not buy from them but the service from their staff was eye-poppingly good. Their service and civility in selling men’s clothes set a benchmark for me which I have referenced ever since.

Spencer Hart 

Spencer Hart have a logo in their showroom window which states “The birth of the cool”

Absolutely right. Absolutely absolutely right.

Spencer Hart sell the prefect black suit. Slim, sleek cuts in dark silky cloths. These are the suits for cocktail bars and clubs, parties and casinos. Understated and elegant, Spencer Hart suits are masterpieces of cool style. They are slightly raffish suits for men who know how to party. Call it bad boy style, man-of-the-world style. Elegance was part of what I was looking for, so they made my shortlist too. To be honest, I could not drag myself away from their suits, just looking at them makes me feel like a stylish guy.

Interestingly, Nick Hart, the creative heart of the company, has just designed a collection for Aquascutum, the English clothing brand. The ready-to-wear suits look almost as stylish as the bespoke. It will be interesting to see how they do. I will write more as time goes by.

Richard James 

Richard James has a Ready-to-wear and a Bespoke shop in Savile Row. I like Richard James’ take on Savile Row tailoring. His suits are well-cut without being over-formal. Cloths are inventive and colours are imaginative yet knowingly stylish.   In my view Richard James is the perfect introduction to Savile Row tailoring. His suits are modern and elegant, his store is light and welcoming and his staff are knowledgeable but carry themselves lightly, friendly and helpful.

Kilgour

Like Richard James, Kilgour are one of the “modern” faces of Savile Row, though they have a long history on the Row. To me, Kilgour’s style is distinctive and intriguing.  Like Gieves and Hawkes their suits have a definite silhouette, a classic cut. Yet the Kilgour cut is softer, more sensuous, with a slightly romantic Italian feel about the suit. It’s a very flattering cut, making the chest look wider and the waist look slimmer. In recent years their window display seems to have favoured suits in lighter fabrics, often with a slight shimmer or silkiness, that suggests the clothes are a wool/mohair mix.

Kilgour looks very approachable, with a wide double front store, light and modern. They also have a bespoke range, so it is easy to browse and get a feel for their style. So, these are my choices.

Next step (in Part 2), who do I chose?

The first draft of the new What Makes a Man website is now online. Look forward to hearing from you shortly.