Chocolate Liquor

Chocolate liquor is the name used for cocoa beans that are ground into a paste; it is the ingredient in dark and milk chocolate that provides chocolate flavor. Chocolate liquor is also a legally permissible name for unsweetened chocolate.

Roasted cocoa beans are approximately 55 percent fat; when they are ground, the cell walls rupture, releasing the cocoa butter. The result is a system consisting of solid cacao particles surrounded by fat (cocoa butter), which yields chocolate liquor. Due to its high fat content, chocolate liquor is liquid when warmed above the melting point of cocoa butter. In the parlance of chocolate specifications, chocolate liquor is 100 percent cacao and 50 to 60 percent cocoa butter. (See Chocolate Percentages.)