The Candy Man Can

Nestled neatly off of historic Highway 281 and Highway 6, rests a quaint Victorian-era home. Here you will find Wiseman House Chocolates, cleverly named after the home’s original owners, with plenty of pleasant surprises and affordable luxuries.

With its many picturesque settings to enjoy a book or treat, you’re invited into the painting at every turn. At Wiseman House, chocolates are meant to be an experience. Each chocolate is hand crafted in hopes of customers slowing down and savoring life.

Owner, artist and chocolatier, Kevin Wenzel, first opened the doors to the Wiseman House in 1996. However, when he first opened, the focus was not meant to be on chocolates. “It was going to be kind of a menagerie of things, but within three months the chocolate took off, so I just stayed focused on that,” noted Wenzel.

Wenzel began his studies in fine arts and spent time abroad in the Orient and Eastern Europe. Kevin’s time in Eastern Europe deepened his love and fascination with chocolate in particular. He was teaching English as a Second Language classes to students in Riga, Latvia at the time, a region that had been riddled under Soviet control for three generations. “Soviets killed one million people from Latvia and brought in Russians to control the Latvian people,” Wenzel recollected, “they didn’t remember real freedom besides books.” In fact, according to the Latvian population database, the percentage of Latvians in Riga had fallen to 36.5% in 1989.

Riga is full of heritage and art and, at one time, was even known as the Paris of the Baltic Sea. Germans, Finns, Swedes, and other people would often come to Riga like a melting pot of cultures with art, food, and other things to form a new Renaissance of sorts. There was even a chocolate company that had been in Riga for over 100 years. Wenzel recalled often asking his students what their favorite food was, to which many would reply chocolate. Chocolate was an indulgent experience in this part of the world.

“These guys were into chocolate and I’d never heard of anyone being that excited about chocolate. On my last day in Riga, all my students took me out to have chocolate. It was the coldest day yet, the ice was built up on the river, and they took me to this chocolate shop and gave me sipping chocolate. It’s like hot chocolate [or] like drinking espresso, as it is a pure chocolate. This little shop was so sweet. It was then I decided, you know, that this was really fun,” Wenzel reminisced.

The experience resonated so deeply with Kevin that, the first thing he did before opening the chocolate shop was buy a bunch of little espresso cups to serve his own version of the sipping chocolate. “It was just pure chocolate that delivered all the chocolate flavor all at once and was impactful and just really great.” In fact, the ancient Mayans enjoyed their chocolate in the same way over two thousand years ago, revering it as the nectar of the gods. Kevin Wenzel created his own version of this liquid sipping chocolate so sublime, one has to taste it to believe it. Sipping chocolate is actually tiny 100% pure chocolate morsels that when added with hot water, becomes a smooth and sensual drink like no other.

A confectioner’s son, Wenzel, studied chocolate making at a fifth generation chocolate school in Pennsylvania. “Over the next ten years I started making a lot of different products, started teaching chocolate to others, and had enough skill that I could be called a chocolatier,” recalled Wenzel. To be called a chocolatier, a person has to have the necessary knowledge and skills to work with chocolate, as well as, teach the art to others.

A tradition for the Wenzel family, Kevin’s grandmother, Cotton, had a small country store south of Dallas long before it was the sprawling metropolis we know today. Cotton’s brother, Kevin’s great-uncle, was a candy maker in Dallas. Kevin grew up making beef jerky, sausage, cheesecake and candy with his siblings in his father’s store in Hamilton. The Dutchman’s Hidden Valley Country Store first opened in 1985 and is currently run by his sister, Kara. The Wenzel family have all have their hand in a bit of the craft, as his brother went on to open his own deli and meat market. Wenzel Lone Star Meat Market, in Hamilton, has made a name for itself selling pork butt sandwiches.

Kevin Wenzel truly possesses the perfect combination of talent, training and heritage for the delicate art of chocolate making. Kevin’s artistic nature is on display in the different chocolates and products found in his store. This is not only in the physical beauty of each candy, but the experience to be appreciated.

Enjoying Wenzel’s chocolates truly is a unique occurrence. Besides love and tradition, freshness sets his chocolates apart. Wiseman House combines real chocolate from places like Belgium and Venezuela with real ingredients such as fresh whipping cream, chopped fruits, authentic liqueurs, and real flavors like crushed coffee beans. What makes their chocolates so unique is actually not so much what they put in, but what they leave out. You won’t find added sugars, glutens, sodium nitrates or trans fats in the chocolates at Wiseman House. The result is a fuller flavor profile, smoother texture, and richer taste that you will begin to appreciate from the very first bite.

This modern-day Willy Wonka is living out a childhood dream of many, all the while making a global impact with a nonprofit organization he supports called Kids Across Cultures (KAC). KAC provides clean water, food, educational opportunities and medical care to impoverished peoples of Asia and Mexico.

Kids Across Cultures was founded in 2008 in Dublin. Missionaries, business owners and various other folks willing to get their hands dirty set out with the vision of helping people currently overseas conducting projects, while providing resources. KAC funds basic healthcare needs, nutritional training, physical needs for handicap people, vision screening and eye care, clean water and countless other projects. KAC began with a project in Southwest China helping the Hani, who are considered to be the most impoverished of China’s 55 recognized minorities. The Hani labor in terraced rice fields as sharecroppers throughout the mountainous countryside. There is not a real emphasis on education in the home, so many people begin working from a young age to make ends meet. In villages like these, there is no access to water outside of the region’s rainy season.

For seven years, KAC primarily focused on providing clean water to villages that did not have access to water. But a few years ago, they began a drive to put clean filters in people’s homes. These water filters helped dramatically decrease the rate of dysentery in the villages the organization has been able to help. In the last few years, Kids Across Cultures has put out a little over 7,000 filters with 5,000 of those being to families. The group’s current focus is “clean water for every kid.” The goal is to provide a water filter in villages to any family that has children in the home. The organization has even worked with schools in the area to provide filters for their students, as it is common for children to live at school during the week in these parts.

“One of our values as KAC is that we want to partner with and be a part of [teams] that are not just going to just go and fix a problem and then leave. Relationships are a big thing for us. We want to get to know people and listen to their needs and situations. When the kids are better, we’re going back and we’re building relationships with people and getting to know them. Once major problems like water systems are solved, there are other issues that are going to need dealing with,” notes Craig Scoville, co-founder and board member of the Kids Across Cultures nonprofit organization.

This year, the organization began working with a project in Cambodia called the Cambodia Village Outreach in hopes to bring change and opportunity to the Siem Reap area. There is a team of eight Cambodians that work together to conduct educational and medical programs. They currently have 25 children they support to go to school. In the last six months, KAC introduced sustainable water to the village and has provided over 1,000 filters. Their goal is to provide over 2,500 filters in the village by 2020.

Kevin Wenzel became involved with KAC over 4 years ago and wanted to use his gifts and talents to promote the organization’s cause, thus the birth of Choctoberfest. Choctoberfest occurs the entire month of October to promote Kids Across Cultures, featuring the best of Hico.

This year marks the 4th annual Choctoberfest. It’s goal is to promote Hico and its businesses as valuable, authentic and refreshing destinations, while benefiting charity. Guests can participate in a chocolate scavenger hunt, chocolate food tastings, art and specials all month long. Choctoberfest is about getting people together and letting people know about Kids Across Cultures.

It truly is profound that our small communities can make a global impact. We can leave our fingerprints and make that difference. This small town business and nonprofit organization are achieving exactly that. “I think what I’ve found over the years is that if I can make a difference in the lives of a handful of people today or tomorrow or even next week, the ripple effect of that is huge,” Scoville observed.

You can give the gift of clean water this year! A filter can provide clean water for a family of six for up to five years and is only $75. Every amount is helpful and appreciated. You can make donations online at kidsacrosscultures. org or mail donations to Kids Across Cultures, PO Box 394, Dublin, TX 76446. KAC is a registered 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization.