Thursday, November 16, 2023

Tryazon + RitterSport = Fun!

 It's crazy - as I came to post on here I looked through some past posts and realized the last Tryazon party I hosted was actually 1 year ago, in very similar circumstances to this one! Last November we had planned to run a Tough Mudder 5k - only to have it "Rained Out" - what?! I had made all these big plans for hosting a Tryazon party after with a bunch of allergy-free chocolates and we were all excited. It was a big bummer to have it all cancelled last-minute.


So what a turn of events that here we are a year later - finally doing all these things again, only this time with a different party brand to host. On Saturday we finally got to have our dual "Tough Mudder - Chocolate Tasting" party with everyone, and it was worth the wait. I was really nervous with all the rain we were getting during the week (again?!) but luckily everything worked out and we were able to do the race. We were definitely just there for fun, no real racing or going for times. Just making it through the obstacles and enjoying our (child-free!) time together. It was really nasty (was it mud, or cow poop we were crawling through?? 🤮 Smelled so bad!), and some of it was super cold (repeated dunking in 33 degree ice water??) and I did skip the last two obstacles (baby on board!) but it was so much fun and I'm glad we ended up doing it. Even though we took our time and it was only 5k, we all realized how tired and hungry we were on the way home.


Enter: the amazing RitterSport Chocolate for a refueling session! Tryazon sent me a box with their iconic square bars of their most popular colorful chocolates lineup, as well as mini's of some varieties. I have had RitterSport before and honestly they just make delicious chocolate. It's simple, a lot of the flavors are very straightforward, but they are done well, and that makes all the difference. Each flavor is so smooth, creamy, and luscious. I am typically not a big fan of dark chocolate, but even their dark varieties are sweet enough and still deliver a flavor that can be enjoyed by all.


RitterSport is a brand that has been committed to responsibility from the start; the bottom line comes down to sustainability. All of their cacao is sustainably sourced, they are very close to being 100% carbon-neutral, they even have their own Cocoa farm!


To start off our party, I laid out samples of each variety and gave everyone papers to enter their guesses. Whoever could guess the most correct was the winner - however it turned out more difficult than I thought - nobody was able to get them all, and there were a couple that tripped every single person up! I had a "tiebreaker" chocolate at the end in case multiple people guessed all the varieties. It was chocolate-covered quinoa I had discovered recently, but it wasn't much help since not a single person was able to guess the secret ingredient!


Then we had a bingo game. I created a bunch of different card using terms related to the RitterSport company and their chocolate. Everyone got their own cup filled with the other pieces I had snapped up from the square bars; they had some of each variety in their cup which they could use as their bingo markers, as well as for tasting afterward! The kids were more excited about this game. We had 2 winners each - the winners from each game got to pick a favor bag filled with a variety of the mini's squares.


To round things out, I also provided a few other snacks so it wasn't just straight-up chocolate for the whole thing. We had banana chocolate-chip muffins made with "confetti sprinkle" chips to add color but after mixing you really couldn't see them at all so I topped with colorful sprinkles to fit the theme. I made some chocolate-covered marshmallows in a rainbow of colors, and topped them with "RitterSport" and "Tryazon" to highlight the brands. Finally I put out a plate of cookies that I had from something else, mainly to give people other choices to snack on, but also partly as a bit of a sneaky announcement since not everyone knew about the baby yet.


I also took a note from Tryazon's Pinterest page and used a bunch of paint cards to make a couple paper garlands. Super simple and cute! BUT, I realized later you can hardly even tell they were there in most of the pictures. All in all the party was quite fun, we all enjoyed the games and re-energizing with some tasty treats. By far, Milk Chocolate with Cornflakes was the most popular flavor - it was a total hit and everyone kept digging around to try and find more, and I don't blame them. That one is my favorite and absolutely delicious!


Thanks for a tasty opportunity! #Tryazon #RitterSportUSA


Winners!




Stocking up for take-homes!


I was trying to fix my photos for Instagram posting... but you can never see the whole thing!




Stacks of deliciousness