Kilwins wins heart this Valentine's season

“Valentine’s Day at Kilwins is the most fun circus you could ever go to,” said Teresa Bostick, Team Lead at the Kilwins chocolate shop on the Square.

Throughout the year, Kilwin’s offers its well-known chocolate truffles, caramels and ice cream, aw well as specialty products like caramel apples and chocolate dipped items, including Oreos, marshmallows and pretzel rods. There are 32 different flavors of ice cream with cake cones and housemade waffle cones. They recently added Dubai Buckeyes to the dessert case, a pistachio filling coated in chocolate.

Georgetown resident Amber Kurkowski owns the franchise location with Michelle Baran. 

Ms. Kurkowski said that after the holiday season wraps up, Valentine's Day is sometimes an afterthought for consumers.

“Starting, like, two days before Valentine's Day, we get really busy,” she said. “Then on Valentine's Day, we get all the husbands who forgot it's Valentine's Day.”

In February, Kilwins add special Valentine’s Day chocolate-covered strawberries, raspberry fudge and custom chocolate heart boxes. Ms. Kurkowski said customers can request different chocolate dipping flavors.

She asks customers to place their chocolate strawberry orders in person or on the phone, ahead of time, so she can best prepare for the usual last-minute rush.

Ms. Kurkowski handdips the strawberries in the mornings on the days leading up to Valentine’s Day. She crosses her fingers that she has enough for customers who forgot to order them ahead of time. 

Ms. Kurkowski said her favorite thing about Kilwins is that she gets to make many of the items in the store. She said Kilwins uses real cocoa to make their white chocolate. 

“Most manufacturers don’t actually use cocoa when they make their white chocolate,” Ms. Kurkowski said. “They just use the flavoring.”

Kilwins’ cocoa beans are sourced from farmers in Peru and the Dominican Republic. At Kilwin’s company headquarters in Michigan, oil is extracted out of the beans and then used to create the chocolate. Ms. Kurkowski said it isn’t common for mass producers to use cocoa from a single origin.

“I feel like the Dominican is a little more like a nutty flavor,” Ms. Kurkowski said. “I personally prefer the Dominican over the Caribbean. But it just depends on your flavor palette.”

Ms. Bostick said she loves helping thoughtful shoppers pick out chocolates for Valentine’s Day. 

“Everybody's excited and everyone wants to do something to please somebody,” she smiled. She is still waiting for someone to put a ‘big diamond ring’ in the middle of one of the custom chocolate boxes, she said.