Prickly pear and ancho honey: this local man makes chocolate with classic Tucson flavors

No eccentric factories or frilly suits with a matching top hat or cane, all Bezies needs is a cocoa bean and his kitchen.

Like magic, he is able to transform the lumpy, unsightly bean into a rich, creamy chocolate bar.

But he doesn’t stop there.

He turns things a notch, combining native Tucson ingredients and flavors into the caramel, leaving you with a gooey filling that tastes like a golden sunset peeking through the Catalina Mountains.

Bezies is the chocolatier and creator of Tucson Chocolate Factory, where he’s whipping up high quality chocolate, incorporating all the flavors of the desert into each bonbon.

Instead of bingeing a 10-season TV show or learning how to knit, Bezies picked up chocolate-making during the pandemic. With the help of online resources and trying out different methods, he learned how to make delicious, rich chocolate bars.

“Initially I was buying store-bought chocolate to make my product, but then my supplier retired,” Bezies said. “Then I had the thought, what if I make my own chocolate? That's how that began. I fell in love with the process of sourcing the cocoa beans and how dramatically the ingredient can transform from its raw state.”

To add more flavor to his chocolates, Bezies began going to local farmers markets to pick up honey or different chiles to add some kick to the caramel filling. Inspired by all the quality ingredients we have access to in Tucson and how special our food culture is, Bezies decided it was time to join the fun and bring what he does best to the table.

In 2022, Tucson Chocolate Factory officially opened for business. Unlike Willy Wonka, Bezies didn’t need an extravagant factory to create his chocolate bars. All he needed was his home kitchen.

To make his chocolate, Bezies first gets his cocoa beans. To ensure the best flavor possible, he imports his cocoa beans from different countries, only using ones that are ethically sourced. Once he has his beans, it’s time to roast them, which helps bring out the chocolatey flavor.

“If you ever eat a raw cocoa bean, it can be very sour,” Bezies said. “There's a lot of acidic and a lot of vinegar components naturally in the actual cocoa bean. So when you roast it, you're basically getting rid of all those flavor compounds that you don't want in the chocolate.”

Once they are roasted, Bezies breaks open the beans and grinds up the inner parts. After a few days in a stone grinder, he is finally able to temper the ground cocoa nibs, add some sugar and mold it into a bar, truffles or bonbons.

These aren’t your average Twix or Snickers bars: Bezies fills each chocolate with caramel or chocolate ganache, incorporating classic Tucson flavors. Ancho mesquite honey, prickly pear caramel and lemon agave caramel are just a few staples on the Tucson Chocolate Factory menu.

“We have a saguaro fruit caramel that I make using saguaro fruit syrup that I source from Tohono O’odham farmers,” Bezies said. “We also use different kinds of chiles and citrus.”

The bonbons Bezies creates are almost too pretty to eat. Each bonbon is perfectly molded into a dome, decorated with glittery, colorful paint. The chocolate is so smooth and shiny, they look like glass décor you’d find at a fancy shop.

Each bite takes you on a flavorful adventure. First, you taste the milky, rich chocolate shell, then you get a mouthful of smooth caramel filling with hints of sweetness from the prickly pear.

You move on to the next bonbon in the pack: ancho mesquite honey. Instead of caramel, these are filled with a thicker chocolatey filling that has notes of sweet honey and ancho chiles.

Next up: the vanilla whiskey caramel bonbon. This chocolate could only be described as a Milky Way but a million times better. The milk chocolate is complemented by the creamy vanilla caramel filling. The warm vanilla flavor lingers in your mouth after, making you want to eat 10 more.

Finally, you're left with an orange zest caramel. The bright orange flavor in the caramel livens up the chocolate, making it feel refreshing and colorful.

Aside from the bonbons, Tucson Chocolate Factory also offers chocolate bars, including Bezies' favorite: the Colombian chocolate. Bezies uses 70% dark chocolate and adds a red wine-infused sea salt. Tucson Chocolate Factory has also won many international chocolate awards for their Bolivian chocolate bars.

Most recently, Bezies added a Dubai chocolate bar to the menu. After getting calls from customers who wanted to try the viral chocolate bars, Bezies did some research and got in touch with Middle Eastern restaurants in town, working with them to make sure he captured all the traditional flavors.

Tucson Chocolate Factory’s future is looking delicious as Bezies is working to add all kinds of new flavors to the menu. He is currently working on an entire series of chile-based chocolate truffles. He’s also creating Día de Los Muertos truffles that look like calaveras and another take on a Dubai chocolate bar with a Mazapan filling.

Once you start eating truffles and bonbons from Tucson Chocolate Factory, you won’t want to pick up Hershey’s or Reeses again.

“It is going to sound super cheesy, but it does speak to you,” Bezies said. “The chocolate speaks to you when you taste it.”

Tucson Chocolate Factory has partnered with different resorts, hotels, candy shops and local stores. To order chocolate or if you want to see a list of where you can find the chocolate in town, visit their website.