living local!

Wombat Hill House, Daylesford

In ballarat and looking to find some yummy grounded pleasures drinking chocolate in this wintry weather? Try Wilsons on Mair Street, Cake Bakeshop on Main Road (don't forget to grab a yummy cupcake!), The Turret on Sturt Street, The Lydiard Wine Bar or our newest supplier Cafe Muzyka (you'll find us there most Friday mornings listening to Earl Leonard's fun kids show). A little further away? Try Daylesford where you can pick up our retail packs at Lark or check out the Lake House's fantastic new venture at Wombat Hill House. 

On the topic of living local, have you checked out the untold gold site?
"Untold Gold is unearthing the hidden treasures of Ballarat – From food and wine to shopping and history, the UG maps and devoted website are a guide to all the must sees of the beautiful central Victorian city. Ballarat is a city of riches – Bringing together a wealth of history and a vibrant, burgeoning modernity. The UG maps and website will be packed with helpful information to help you get the most out of your Ballarat experience. So whether you are a local with a story to tell, a visitor sharing your experience or a newcomer, Untold Gold is a hub for sharing information and creating discussion. Stop in at one of the nearby visitor centres or your favourite boutiques, cafés or hotels and pick up a copy (November) or play here." Untold gold is just getting up and running, so be sure to check back at the site regularly to see the new adds. We are very exciting to have already had a little write up here.

ahhhhhh chocolate ale!

Craig watching Gus making up the first batch of the chocolate ale at the Otways Brewery in late June.

Who would have thought two of lifes great pleasures could be combined into one - chocolate and beer? Well the wait has ended. Grounded Pleasures in conjunction with Otway brewing/Prickly Moses, have just finished a batch of delightful chocolate ale. Using a intriguing blend of malts and quite bit of Grounded Pleasures African Red in the brew we think we have come up with smooth fulfilling rich chocolate ale. At moment it is only being released in  Keg , mainly in Melbourne and more particular the Brewers Showcase for the month of July at Young and Jacksons in Melbourne CBD. So if this gets your fancy get along to Y&J's. It is to be launched at 5.30pm on Tuesday July 19th. Just the thing to cure those winter blues!!

busy brewing!

We have been working away busily here at grounded pleasures, so much so that the blog has definitely been put on the back burner of late! We have lots of updates to post over the next few days. Craig has been very happily working on a chocolate beer (tough job that one), we headed off to adelaide over the long weekend to catch up with lovely friends and customers who are doing great things in sa, we've also been working on some new products that we are going to launch this year. Back soon with the details of all of this, and more of what we have been up to!

clyde park winery, bannockburn

Some not so flash snaps of our lovely time yesterday at Clyde Park Winery, Bannockburn. These photos definitely do not do the magnificent views justice! Yummy woodfire oven pizza and breads, amazing wine and a great atmosphere. The place was packed with large groups having sunday lunch, listening to lovely acoustic music and wine tasting. Gus loved the food and running up and down the hill (Craig was a bit exhausted after that). A very child friendly venue. Terry and Sue are now stocking our chocolate as well, which is a great excuse for us to make regular visits! Bannockburn is between Ballarat and Geelong.

Read a great review here :) 

living fundraisers

 

We are very proud to be part of the living fundraisers program. The Living Fundraisers program was founded with the mission to contribute to a better world by helping schools, groups and organisations raise fund through ethical, healthy and family-friendly fundraising. They do this by:

• creating products with environmental, educational and/or social benefit
• providing high profits for fundraising organisations
• channelling funds to charities and non-profit organisations. 

We were very happy to see the program in action when at a friends house for a bbq on sunday, they were selling the seed packs to raise money for their son's chilcare centre! A much better way to raise money for your school/ community group, etc than to be selling junk food! :)

grazia!

It was so suprising to be reading a copy of Grazia, and find Matthew Evans as the food editor, let alone a mention of our drinking chocolate! We met Matthew at his stall at Salamanca Market, Hobart on our trip their earlier this year. We bought a copy of his book 'Real Food' as a present for friends that we were staying with at the time. Craig got chatting about our drinking chocolate and gave Matthew some to taste. We are thrilled with what he had to say about our product! :)


If you can't read the article through the image, Matthew Evans wrote....
 The real taste of hot chocolate
You've heard of single-origin coffee, the importance of terroir in wine and regionality in air-dried jarmon..Welcome to the world of elite chocolate, where the sourcing is as important as the processing. For drinking chocolate, little comes close to the bliss of a cup from Grounded Pleasures, a company that prides itself on flavour - and the wellbeing of its growers. Guilt-free goodness!

weekly times article!

  

We are in the latest edition of the weekly times, which is out today! We had such a lovely writer, Sarah, interview Craig a little while back - he kept her chatting for hours! :) Craig really enjoyed the interview process and getting photos taken in the chocolatorium. The Weekly Times is out now, or you can read the article online here. We were also pretty stoked to see one of our stockists, Greg from Red Hill's Green Olive had an article on the same page!!! What a funny coincidence. You can read that article here or check out the Green Olive website here.