People are snorting the fine brown powder (Picture: Getty)

For many, chocolate is a drug. So, it’s perhaps not surprising that someone’s come up with a way of snorting it.

Chocolate snorting is believed to have originated in Belgium (where else?) and, in 2008, the first cocoa snorting kit was invented by Belgian Dominique Persoone.

He conjured up the apparatus – a sort-of plastic catapult – as a unique way of serving dessert at Ronnie Wood’s birthday party (again, who else?) Instead of eating the chocolate, guests were encouraged to take a snifter.

With research suggesting we taste with our nose, Persoone claims sniffing his chocolate concoctions – he does cocoa powder with either raspberry or ginger and mint – gives an extra chocolate hit.




And now his invention’s gone global.

Canadian site The Province reported its arrival in Vancouver this week, with the Commercial Drive Licorice Parlour now dealing in Persoone’s fine powder.

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The chocolate shooter in action (Picture: The Chocolate Line)

Parlour owner Mary Jean Dunsdon sells the kits for $109 CAD (£60) but she’ll also do a $2 (£1.10) snort.

Dunsdon is pretty hyped about her new product. ‘When you snort it,’ she told The Province, ‘you kind of experience chocolate for a couple hours very subtly — without the caloric intake. It hits all the same pleasure receptors in the brain as if you were eating it.’

Although trends among schoolkids for snorting crushed sweets have in the past raised concerns about allergic reactions, nasal scarring, lung irritation and infection, Dunsdon recommends the cocoa ‘in moderation’ and says she hasn’t had a negative reaction yet.

Persoone’s kits are also sold through his The Chocolate Line website and 25,000 of the catapults have so far been sold worldwide.

Dunsdon’s says her customers are hooked: ‘I think when you first inhale it, not a lot of people are snorters, per se, and so they’re all kind of shocked. There’s kind of this initial, like, ‘Oh, what’s happened to me!”

‘Then the chocolate starts to fall down the back of the throat and this very pleasant look comes over their face. They quite like it after that.’

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