Flavor Profile | Toasted Coconut

What Happens When Our Founders Go on a Coconut Binge?

Piña coladas, macaroons, coconut cream pie ... those are just some of the things Kyle and Brooks ate and drank when trying to come up inspiration for a coconut bar. You might say that they sorta went on a coconut binge.

"We were on a mission to eat anything and everything that uses coconut," Brooks says. "It was research, but it was also a lot of fun."

Coconut became their focus for a couple reasons. First, they wanted to make a coconut bar because they loved the taste. They’d always enjoyed coconut flavored snacks but knew they could do the flavor more justice. And second, they knew coconut was full of healthy oils that are good for everything from your skin to your brain.

As with other bars in the Taos lineup, Kyle and Brooks started by sourcing the tastiest, healthiest ingredients they could find, starting with coconut. They quickly learned that most coconut snacks use overly-processed flakes that have been robbed of their taste and health benefits. So instead, they went with simple, dehydrated coconut flakes that punched up the flavor and kept most of their oils.

Next, they decided to toast the coconut to make it even tastier and blended in ground vanilla bean that costs over $300 a pound. As with many of our bars, there bar uses almonds as a clean, powerful energy source, honey for dose of sweet and to hold everything together, and a hint of sea salt to balance out the sweet.

As the bar came together, both Kyle and Brooks suspected they had a bestseller on their hands because everyone they gave a sample to loved it. But they were also nervous because they hadn’t mass produced the bar and worried coconut might not appeal to everyone.

Now, of course, the feedback is in. Almost as soon as Toasted Coconut was released it became a cult favorite amongst existing Taos fans, and to this day it continues to be our best seller.

"Our philosophy has always been make stuff that we like because we felt like more people were bound to like it too,” Brooks says."

“It’s hard to put an experiment out into the world and get feedback, but we were stoked to see Toasted Coconut catch on quickly and with a really diverse crowd. For us, Toasted Coconut really symbolized a big step forward for us by proving that we could take chances and deliver.”