My Biz: Small business makes chocolate with vodka, cayenne pepper - and bacon

“Nobody knows the truffles I've seen” declares the sign hanging in Lori Vislisel's home.

The sign stands over metal racks stacked high with truffle- and fudge-making supplies, candy molds and top-of-the-mark flavoring agents such as Gran Marnier and Maker's Mark Bourbon.

With more than 60 different flavors of truffles, fudge and caramels offered by Lori Ann's Candies, there is little empty space on the shelves. In season, there will be chocolate-dipped strawberries and dried fruits by the hundreds.

Lori Vislisel runs the business with the management and production help of her daughter Elizabeth Reuschhoff, a Kirkwood business management graduate. Additional crunch time help comes from Vislisel's husband, Mark, and family friend Danielle Hallier, who does all the hand decorating on the chocolates.

During the day Vislisel works at Cottage Grove Place, but in the evenings and on weekends she stirs up batches of fudge - vanilla bean fudge being a customer favorite - or double batches at a time of hand-stirred caramel.

“During Easter, we dip our homemade marshmallows in the caramel and then in chocolate,” Vislisel said.

“My folks owned a restaurant, and my sister and I started out doing gift baskets,” she recalled, “and soon I wondered why we couldn't add candy in along with the food.”

One thing lead to another, as customers appreciated the truffles offered - “and the creaminess of them,” Vislisel added. “The phone kept ringing for orders and requests from people, and it just took off.”

That was four years ago.

The handmade confections are available at the Hiawatha and Mount Vernon farmers markets, as well as Big Creek Market, Video Village and Bass Farms in Mount Vernon. Negotiations are in the works to sell the candies at NewBo City Market in Cedar Rapids and the Iowa City farmer's market this summer.

“We buy 50- to 100-pound blocks of chocolate from Miller's Country Store in Hazelton,” Reuschhoff said. “It contains no paraffin wax and is a mix between milk chocolate and dark chocolate.

“It contains non-fat dry milk instead of the heavier cream content, so it is a little bit lighter in calories, but we get that creamy texture we're known for because of the milk chocolate content.”

Flavor offerings are varied and intoxicating - in more ways than one - with truffle flavors such as raspberry almond, chocolate bourbon pecan, Russian lemonade (made with vodka), chocolate tangerine, the more exotic Tequila Rose and the spicy truffle they've named the Aztec.

“We use cayenne pepper and chili powder for the Aztec ... ,” Reuschhoff said.

For bacon aficionados, Reuschhoff created a treat using cottage bacon from local pork, glazed in maple syrup before a dip in their chocolate.

“At first people are afraid of it, but once they try it, they're sold on it,” she grinned.

Portions for the candies are constructed to be a bit smaller, and this is deliberate, according to Reuschhoff.

“We keep them smaller so we can sell them at a price where people can afford to buy themselves a treat,” she said.

And what has been their latest production night to date?

“We had to work until 4 a.m. one time,” Vislisel recalled.

“We had a couple of orders to fill, we had a wedding to do, and we had markets coming up,” added Reuschhoff. “We'd literally sold out of everything we'd made, and we were starting a week with nothing.

“We had to stay up and get ready for the new week.”

Name: Lori Vislisel

Title: Owner

Company: Lori Ann's Candies

Address: 1434 Holmes Rd., Mount Vernon

Phone: (319) 350-5927

Know a manager or company in business for more than a year we should feature in “My Biz”? Contact business editor Michael Chevy Castranova at michael.castranova@sourcemedia.net.