Cocoadance, from Castleton, Derbyshire is celebrating after winning a prestigious Great Taste Award.  Cocoadance has been presented with a coveted (one star) Gold Great Taste Award for its Beer Flavoured Truffle (Thornbridge Brewery, Jaipur IPA )

Living and working from a National Trust property, ‘award winning’  confectioners David and Bridget produce a limited amount of fancy handmade chocolates and confectionary to their unique style and taste using local and foraged ingredients when possible.

Cocoadance have also just been awarded with the Environmental Quality Mark issued by the Peak Park National Park Authority.

David Golubows, owner of Cocoadance, said: “This is our third Gold. It’s all about trying to use local ingredients. Jaipur IPA (Thornbridge Brewery) is an outstanding, local award winning beer. When I had my first sip of Jaipur, I just knew I had to incorporate it into one of our chocolates somehow. The difficulty was balancing the hoppiness of the beer with the complex variety of flavours found in chocolate. Milk chocolate was the answer. We are delighted with this award”.

Alex Buchanan, Marketing Manager at Thornbridge Brewery, said “We have a brewery team that love chocolate and the ones produced by Cocoadance have long been our favourites. We also like to innovate in our approach to brewing and so were intrigued by the idea of the Jaipur truffle – we loved these and it is really rewarding to hear that the hard work of David and Bridget has been successful in winning their award”.

The Great Taste Awards, which is organised by the Guild of Fine Food, is now in its 16^th year and going from strength to strength. More and more consumers recognise the gold & black logo as the benchmark for independently proven, fine food. Many of the winning products are made locally, making the most of local resources and supporting rural economies, and searching for award-winning products from a specific region is couldn’t be simpler: a full list is available at www.greattasteawards.co.uk, and can be searched by region, award or product category. What’s more, these amazing products can be sampled for free in delis and farm shops up and down the country during October, as part of the Guild’s Taste Gold promotion.

The Great Taste Awards judging standards, devised by the Guild of Fine Food, are the most rigorous in the UK. Every entry is blind tasted by teams of experts. By the time it earns gold, it will have been assessed by at least three different teams. All the judges’ comments are made available to producers. If no gold is awarded, they need to know how and why.  The awards ceremony for will take place at a glittering event hosted by specialist food and drink presenter Nigel Barden at Fortnum & Mason’s on September 7th, when the Supreme Judging Panel will taste all regional winners live in front of a packed crowd to decide which entry is to be crowned Supreme Champion 2009. Blur bass player, farmer and writer Alex James, chef Mark Hix, and Thomasina Miers of Masterchef fame are among those already confirmed for the panel, and there may be a surprise panelist to be unveiled on the night.

Bob Farrand of the Guild of Fine Food, said: “Lovers of fine food and drink only pay for the best if they’re certain what they’re buying is the best. Every food with a Great Taste Award gold has been independently proven to be just that – and it tastes great too”