St. Croix Chocolate Company in Marine on St. Croix

Last Sunday my friend Beth and I went to the St. Croix Chocolate Company in Marine on St. Croix, which is between Stillwater and Taylors Falls on the St. Croix River. Marine on St. Croix is a small, very picturesque town that has one main street with some shops and a few restaurants. The St. Croix Chocolate Co. won The City Pages' prize for the best chocolate store in the Twin Cities, and rightly so, in my opinion. All of their ingredients are sourced from only a few miles away, for example, the chocolate that they use is made across the river in Osceola, Wisconsin. You can taste that the chocolate is really high quality and the chocolates they sell are truly works of art. They are probably the best-looking chocolates I have ever seen. I got the Madagascar bon bon, which is decorated to look like a cocoa bean and has 65% cacao, the honey whiskey bon bon, which is the one with the white swirl, the raspberry bon bon, which is red, and a violet bon bon, which has a violet on top and tasted a bit like the flower, too. Beth got the Madagascar, the raspberry, and one called Salt and Smoke, which she said was made with milk chocolate and filled with salted caramel. It was covered with hickory-smoked almonds. They were all really good; it is definitely worth the drive to go there. We also went to the bar and grill in Marine on St. Croix, where I had an avocado turkey burger with sweet potato fries, which was quite good. The bar and grill has a nice atmosphere; it kind of feels like a cabin. I have also heard that the ice cream shop in town is very good. Unfortunately, it was quite cloudy when we went there, I'm sure it would be even prettier on a sunny day. We stopped in Stillwater on the way back and walked through town and along the river, which is always fun. We stopped in a few antique stores, too.