Day 8: The Chocolate Museum and Absinthe

     Today we went to the Chocolate Museum. Sound boring? It's not. We signed up for a workshop called From Bean to Bar. It was incredible. First we learned all about how chocolate is made today, starting with how to cut the cacao pods off of the trees. We then went through the entire history of chocolate, where it originated, how it got it's name, and the different forms it has taken over the years. Originally, chocolate was a drink! We drank it how the Mayans did, the Aztecs did, the Aztec royalty did, how the Spaniards did, and we even made our own chocolate! The workshop took about 3 hours and we both loved it. My only regret is that we chose to make dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate. Normally chocolate that you buy in America, unless it's expensive or specifically says the amount of cacao that is in it, has between 5 and 30%. Dark chocolate has between 40 and 50% (or more if you get more expensive specifically darker chocolate.) The dark chocolate we made was 70%. I know. I roasted the cacao beans myself. It was too dark for me though. I could barely eat it. I think I managed to eat two pieces today. But it was so fun.I highly recommend it to anyone going to Antigua, or anywhere there's a chocolate museum. Do the workshop.

     So the workshop was incredible and I took a bunch of pictures. But that wasn't the whole day! We booked a tour to head up Acatenango tomorrow! We also went to an absinthe bar we happened to stumble upon yesterday. That was fun because absinthe is illegal in the United States! Not for any real reason, but it used to be believed that absinthe was a hallucinogen and would make you act crazy! It's since been proved that is not the case and it's just liquor made from wormwood but it was still fun. Plus, they pour it in a really cool way! It's a process to drink it. You need a shot glass, an absinthe spoon (just a small spoon with holes in it), a sugar cube, a lighter and a little water. The first step our bartender took was to pour the absinthe through the spoon into the shot glass. Absinthe can be either clear or green, ours was clear in this case. He then wet a sugar cube with more absinthe and lit it on fire. After it went out, he poured water through the sugar cube. And the coolest part, the absinthe turned milky white! It totally changed color! I didn't think it tasted that great, really strongly like anise. But Austin liked it. So we finished our shared shot (took a picture, unfortunately it's a little dark but I posted it anyway) and then headed back to the hostel for the night.