A CHOCOLATIER is hoping to impress the judges and make it through to the finals of a global competition.

The Chocolate Tree has three of its chocolate bars in the finals of the British round of the International Chocolate Awards.

The Grand Jury Finalists of the 2016 British National Competition, which was judged last month, were announced last week.

Alastair Gower, of the Haddington company, was hoping to win over the judges at the event in York next month.

He said: “It would be nice to win and take gold, of course, but we are not going with any expectations.”

The Knox Place business, which has been running for 10 years, has entrants in three categories and will come up against rival chocolatiers from across the country.

In the flavoured white chocolate bars, they have their Bean to Bar Bergamot and Raspberry bar, while, in the milk chocolate bars with inclusions or pieces section, judges will sample the Chai Spice bar.

But, it is the Whisky Nibs bar in the dark chocolate bars with inclusions or pieces category that Mr Gower, 35, told the Courier was his favourite.

He said: “A lot of people like the idea of chocolate and whisky.

"We spent a long time developing it because it is not easy to just pour whisky into chocolate.

“When you add liquid it makes the chocolate thick and generally you cannot add liquid to chocolate, unless you are doing something with a soft centre.

“You need to get a flavour in there with minimum moisture.

“I will not say the brand of whisky but it is a really premium single malt from Islay. We soak the nibs in there for about a week and then evaporate the whisky and the flavour is left.

“When we first did this, I thought, I’m pouring about £90 worth of whisky into an experiment and let us see if it works.

“Letting it evaporate goes against my grain a bit but it works really well.”

It marks a busy time for Mr Gower, along with wife Friederike and daughter Roslyn, seven, who visited Peru earlier this year to see the work carried out by one of their suppliers.

At the same time, orders have been sent out to various places in Scandinavia, Germany and Hong Kong.

Mr Gower added: “Our goal is we want people to eat less rubbish chocolate and more better quality chocolate.

“We are slowly beginning to help people appreciate better chocolate.”