We love coming to this place, especially for the barrel-shaped chocolates that have creamy fillings containing alcohol. These are unique candies. Elsewhere you can get rather thick chocolate bottles filled with a bit of liquid booze or liqueur, but that chocolate is really hard and not very good. Ethel M's barrel chocolates are a symphony of creamy goodness with a superb dark or milk chocolate shell. The liqueur flavors are lovely, but I'm always surprised at how great the rum and bourbon fillings are.
Of course everything the company sells is superlative, from the plain chocolate (milk, dark, or white) to the butter creams and other fillings to a delicious buttery toffee brittle.
It's pricey candy, and there's no discount for buying at the factory, but you can choose exactly which candies or products you want and they'll be packed along with a Blue Ice type of pack to keep them from melting - all for the same price. That's service. This time we got a bonus of four chocolate bars (two dark and two milk chocolate) along with a purchase of $40.
There's now a chocolate-tasting class available if you want to sample a variety of candies. However, you can't go wrong with anything you buy here!
The spacious parking lot makes visiting convenient. There is also a lovely and informative cactus garden to stroll through outside. We did that first so we could cool off inside afterwards. At Christmas it's decorated!