Cocktails & Chocolate is a great combination!

Saturday we got up early to make it to a 10am Cointreau tour at the factory. Cointreau (for those who don't know) is an orange flavored liqueur that started and is produced in Angers, France...where I live :) The tour consisted of a short video about the history of how it started, a walk through the distillery, a look into the bottling area, and a tasting! yumm! The tour was a little long because it was done in both French and English, but I was very thankful that it was in English! When the tour ended, our tourguide left, and the Cointreau bartender took over. He made a Cointreaupolitan: Cointreau, lemon juice, & cranberry juice and a Cointreau Bubbles: Cointreau, lime juice, & sparkling water. They were both very tasty!

The distillery: where Cointreau is produced

Our table for 12 at the tasting

The Cointreaupolitan with a sample of cheese, dried apricot, cherry tomato, and macaroon

After the Cointreau tour we headed into town for the Chocolate Show! They had tables set up representing a lot of chocolate and pastry shops around Angers. Many tables were giving samples, and some were selling delicious pieces of heaven...I took part in sampling and buying :) As you can imagine, it was amazing!
I wasn't able to stay long (which is really for the best!) because I had to be at the English Library at 3pm to help a woman with her English. This older woman called me earlier in the week and asked if I could help her with her English..ok she didn't really ask me, she told me. Her English wasn't great and (I hate to break it to all of you) my French isn't great either, but we were able to communicate well enough for her to tell me to be at the library at 3pm. I knew that it wasn't going to go well. And it didn't. But oh well, she was a sweet woman and I think she might try to meet with me again with a friend who speaks English.