 music with John Breslin, Island Radio. This is around the Northwest for this Friday afternoon. Now, how does a man from Germany end up in Donegal after a lifetime working in IT, making delicious chocolates? Well, we're going to find out because Axl Pollock, aka the Donegal chocolate man joins us now. Axl. Hi, how are you? Good afternoon. Hi, happy Friday afternoon, John. I'm fine. I saw some sun earlier today. So that's a good time. Yeah, has been spotted, has been for the lesser spotted sun. And now it's a it's an unusual story. A great one, mind you, from Germany, living in Donegal and producing chocolates in Donegal. So explain how did it come about? Right. I should first of all blame my English teacher in school in the late 70s. She did half a year on the Troubles in the North that got me interested in Ireland. So I had to come here, ended up in Donegal last and thought, Oh, this is nice. That was 1980, long, long time ago. Yeah. So then later on, I had a friend, a German friend who was in a school somewhere in Malingar, visited him, break my girlfriend over said, Oh, Ireland, my climate is really nice. Don't pack any Palovas around Easter. Yeah, Ben Balvin was covered in snow. That didn't land so well. Still, she decided to come come with me. Oh, when we both decided our boys would go to school here. So in 96, I think we came over to Dampenai. And the boys went to Balimo National School for a couple of years was great. And then I got the calling to Amsterdam to work there in the internet field again. And that's where I in a way got stuck for for 20 odd years. Until 2019, when I said, 20 years is enough of that. And let's do something new. I came back from my know in Canada, ended up in Holland again, because we have a house in Holland still. And my wife was already in Ireland. She says, When are you coming? When are you coming? I don't know. I can't make any any plans because no ferries, no planes, we have a pandemic going, whatever. So I joined later, went to value Malou, like for the three month cooking course. And last week, they did a bit of chocolate tempering, which was here interesting, but not really my thing took another year or so until I fell into it and too much YouTube and too much Netflixing as it Oh, this is how you make a working hinge out of chocolate, like for little jewel case. And also, they're pretty, I want to make them too. And I tried at home, ordered the stuff, the the molds and the colored cacao butter and like 10 kilo bags of chocolate and just started playing. And the family found it great. After two weeks, it said enough. And I had to find another outlet for for the chocolate. Okay, that's when I when I thought, try country markets and then plenty, which we set up together in the 90s. So at that stage, your family had had enough chocolate and said, No, no, no, no, we can't handle anymore. So you decided then where you're going to package them and sell them. Exactly. That's sort of the shot of it up to 2019. And when you went to Cork for the short course, had you had any cooking experience? Had you worked in any restaurants or hotels or anything like that or any training? Not at all. Well, I cooked, of course, at home. We always did sort of home cooking was fun. My son went to Bali Maloo once and he's he's a chef in Amsterdam. And I was looking through their their curriculum said, Oh, that will be fun. Oh, God, it's for him. It's not for me. And I always wanted to go just to wait a couple of years until the end of that experience. And yay. So it was at the end of it that when we're doing a bit of chocolate that you really sort of sat up and took notice. Yeah, so the the high pressure restaurant chef is not for me. I'm a bit too old for that. And no, and it took a couple of years actually to for me to my for a brain to settle that chocolate me alone in my kitchen sort of attisinal small batch chocolate. That is nice. I've had enough managers and stuff under me for too long. And now it's just me and the kitchen. I'm sitting in a carry keel community center the old school community center. I was looking where could I go for some semi professional kitchen can't do that at home with it with the dog, right? And I'm very happy that I found them. I'm renting out the kitchen there on the daily weekly basis by now more or less. And it's just perfect to people in the kitchen. It's full. It's just me there. And a great location down in Kerry keel. Yeah. So what sort of chocolates? Bonbons? Is that correct? Yes. Yes, that's correct. It's a little bit weird because as a German bonbons are any sort of hard candies. But apparently in pâtisserie, the chocolate bonbon is the thing that has the hard chocolate shell and looks pretty. So it's very shiny and nice designs and it's filled with anything could be whiskey ganache could be fruity things could be just chocolate ganache. Yeah. And so I make them make them in the molds did some some lime this morning, spray painted the mold, put the chocolate in, let it run out again, and you have the shell, the hard shell. Then I fill that with the ganache and then run over later and close them and unmold them. And then I can sell them at the market tomorrow. Is it I mean, you make it sound very simple, but I'm sure there's a there's a lot more to it than that. It took your way to get to this point. It's it's fine. Of course, there's lots of trial and error. And sometimes the the chocolates didn't come out well or would leave the wonderful design in the mold and out came the naked chocolate. Oh, damn. So it takes it takes a while to get get everything right. You have to temper the chocolate the temperature can't vary too much. Then it has to bond with the designer thing. But it's not that difficult if you get the technique right. And then it's just painting the little designs into the molds if you don't spray paint. And that can take a lot of time but it's it's great. And do you have to be a little bit artistic to carry it off correctly? Or is that easy enough to learn? Or are the designs very important? I think designs are important because these kinds of chocolate sell by the prettiness, right? And I design something some I stole off the internet as you can. Some of them are easy to make some of them is just with the, I don't know, the little little sponge and then with the tooth brush that's flattering and I'm called Pollock King like Jackson Pollock, like the big yeah, you know, just better the color but all over the kitchen and hit some some chocolate molds as well. My wife threw me out of the kitchen because of the mess. Well, it's all to good effect. And is it is it all is it almost like baking that you're just never quite sure how they're going to come out or how they're going to either going to be reduced when when you open up the casing or whatever? Yes, I've basically it's about the designs of the ganaches are all fine. And then the cases but the design is a thing you paint in if you paint you paint in reverse outer layer first and inner layer last. So the background and I've had some designs as oh, this doesn't look as pretty as I thought and I just go through with it anyway and unmold them like day late. That's it. Oh, this is actually pretty. Okay, so I'm doing all sorts of designs. I try to standardize a little bit and get my sort of my gift boxes reliably the same and and and out onto the market. I'm also thinking of doing bespoke designs like your company colors or you know, feelings. I might have a first I can't really say it but you know, again, Freda the the border collies of calendar fame. Yes. Yeah, right. You know them. It's the it's his birthday on Sunday. And I might or may not do a special design for her and for Freda too. Okay, don't tell them yet. Okay, okay. You could say for me. So these kinds of things. It's fun. You don't have to be an artist. You can do it. You can do simple things. But if you have the really, really pretty ones that what really gets me Oh, I want to make that too. And I wonder how I can figure it out. Yeah, because we decide first with our eyes, we have to if we if we like what we see, then, you know, we're attracted to it. And are you you're so obviously you're experimenting all the time? I am and that's a bit of a bummer because I want to get my standard product outs out, right? But then I want to make that design and that is I have seen very nice eye looking designs for the for the truck that I want to try that out. But then I it eats time and sometimes doesn't turn out well. And then I have to eat it again myself on my wife. And then she trouts at me. You're your family and friends must love you because there's there all the all the ones that sort of don't make the cut. They have to go somewhere. They have to go somewhere. Yep. That's true. The neighbors again. And and you you you sell them at the market in Dunfana. Hey, and also there's there's other outlets as well. And there's a couple here and that are Kenny natural way and the media's and then down at the Blue Goat and Remelton and Simple Simons in Donegal Town. And you're experimenting as well with them like a whiskey filling. So they they may they may be sold. We're down instead sleeve league distillery. Yes, absolutely. I delivered the last set there to to the distillery itself and showed them tomorrow all trembling because I didn't know whether they would be up to their expectations. Designs were sort of based on on the color scheme of the labels on the bottles. I thought they tasted quite well, but I was really happy. And I of course was taken by her gym and that actually comes through the chocolate. And so that's a good thing. Brilliant. And since since you've started it and things have rolled on and you know, you've moved to a production house there in Kerry Keele. Have you been surprised by the pace of it? Or are you just happy with the way it's going from stage to stage level level to level? I'm happy with the pace it takes it took a long I mean, as only properly started last year, right? So I took the market because it was my market for all time sake. And what I really like at the market is people look you in the face and you see them eating the tasters and go, Oh, I don't like that. Or I do. So that's that's a good thing. But it's relatively slow. Last year was getting used to the to the process and getting into into Amelia's and blue goat. This year, I started fiddling with Facebook. And last year, I already told my Facebook friends, hey, you know, I don't know how to ship chocolate around the world. Shall we try it? You get a rebate. And if they arrive at chocolate soup in Sydney, yeah, then you don't have to pay for that. I sent you a sent you new stuff. I have a repeat customer node colleague in Las Vegas. And he orders like a pile of boxes. And they are they are I fine in Vegas. Not in summer. But it gets it's desert, right? It's getting quite cold in wintertime. So that's safe. Australia, the Caribbean, that's always a bit of a problem. Yeah, but around Ireland, it's fine. And so I see as I do the the Facebook thing that word is getting around. I mean, we are here, right? So what is getting around? That's exciting. I'm still a little bit hesitant about over committing, like I go through a lot of gift shops and say, Hey, chocolates, do you want them? I don't know how much they're gonna pay out the gunner how they're gonna sell. So if they sell really, really well, I have to make more and more and more. And I'm just a one man little business. And I might, if it if it comes to that, I might grow a little bit. But I want to keep it small batch, artisan or whatever the labels are. Yeah, that's that's that's fun. I understand. Well, if you're working in it for, you know, whatever it was 30 over 30 years, you don't want to maybe replace one pressure environment with another. So yes, in the meantime, they they look fantastic. And I wish you every success. And people can check you out on Facebook. Are you the Donegal chocolate man on Facebook? I am. And the website is on your Donegal chocolate man.ie, as it should be. Brilliant. Well, listen, thank you. Not at all. Thank you. Thank you for for having a chat with us on the show. And we wish you every success. Thanks a lot. Have a good weekend. Thanks. Thanks. There's never been a better time to go full lethal. Let's hear it from our customers. 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