I consider this high praise. Dark chocolate is like paint still in the tube: nothing until an artist uses it to create something worthy. And it’s about as tasty as paint. Milk chocolate, being discovered later, shows the evolution of chocolate from it’s base cocoa nibs into a fine ingredient and thence into the delicate beauty of perfection.
<slight hijack>
There’s a new 3 Musketeers out…dark chocolate with a green mint “nougat” center. Odd thing is that it’s about 1/3 the size of the regular 3 Musketeers. It’s not nearly as good as a York Peppermint Pattie.
Ruby
Resident mint-aholic
My rant would be the opposite of the OP - I love chocolate and orange together, but all I can find around these parts is orange and milk chocolate. In my opinion, dark chocolate is the only type of chocolate that should be paired with flavours (mint, orange, raspberry, brandy, or anything else you can think of - except ginger. Nobody should put chocolate anywhere near ginger. That combination is the food of the devils.) I know I can get dark chocolate and orange in a Terry’s Orange, but those things are expensive! My preference would be a dark chocolate with an orange-filled centre, for less than a buck. And available at any corner store. And I want a pony, and a million bucks,…
Mint overwhelms the taste buds, so they try to dump all that awful dark chocolate on the taste bud impaired. Notice on a peppermint patty they still have to have a thick peppermint filling to cover the paper thin dark chocolate, to make it edible.
I got one of those and was disappointed. It was just like a peppermint patty to me. I wanted a 3 Musketeers bar with mint, not some deception!
Featherlou, one of the things I like to dip in milk chocolate fondue is GINGER PIECES. And it seems that in my area, dark chocolate is the usual pairing with orange, such as in gourmet high-percentage cocoa bars. But there is one or two milk chocolate/orange offerings.
Here’s something fun: munch about half a box of Junior Mints, then take a sip of Coke. Then come back and describe the taste to me.
That’s interesting, because I was going to say the opposite - mint is so sweet that it needs the fuller, less sweet taste of dark chocolate to balance it out. Milk chocolate and mint would be a sweetness double whammy, IMO. Too much.
I also think raspberry needs dark chocolate, for the same reason, though I’ve noticed some infidel candy makers do partner it with milk chocolate. Coffee, on the other hand, I think they match with dark chocolate in the forlorn hope that the stronger taste of the yummy dark chocolate will mask that horrid coffeeness. Alas, it does not work.
And the beef, bean and cheese burritos.
I too was disappointed by the mint 3 Musketeers. It was a frothy bit of nothing, and not in a good way.
You people are heathens. Peppermint Patties are a gift from the gods. Milk chocolate is too…limp. I like the bitterness of dark chocolate.
“When I bite into a York Peppermint Patty I get the sensation…Honneeeyyyy! of being a forest with the dew dropping off the coooool greeeeen leaves.”
When my parents bought a convenience store in the early 1990s my mother eventually stopped stocking the big Peppermint Patties. My dad would eat an entire box in less than a week and there were never any on the shelves. I come by my love of PPs through heredity and have passed it on to my daughter who always asks “Can we get a Patty?” when we shop.
I can get my hands on nice, tasty milk chocolate with mint here (I believe it’s a Cadbury bar) - howsabout you send me some of that gourmet orange and dark chocolate, and I’ll send you the mint and milk chocolate?
I rate this post at 70% pure evil.
Email me and we’ll work something out.
Okay, email away. 
I’m fairly certain the Fannie Mae mint meltaways are milk chocolate. Though I might need to do some field research tonight…
What? Don’t like dark chocolate? Bwah?
:: mind refuses to acknowledge ::
In fact, I’m eating an “endangered species” brand Dark Chocolate With Mint (70% cocoa content) right this very moment. Yummmmmmmm.
I think I recall Walgreen’s having a store brand of “thick mints” - like thicker peppermint patties - in both dark and milk chocolate flavors. I’m pretty sure I used to buy and eat them constantly (I don’t like dark chocolate too much, either). But I’ve been trying not to buy such things for a while, and my brand memory is not too good…
Sometimes lower quality milk chocolate is kind of smelly and gross, I’ll admit. And I bet milk-chocolate + raspberry would be way too sweet. But all in all milk chocolate is awesome!
Stay away from my sweets, though, ginger. PLEASE.
Whenever I eat one of those gourmet bars, I feel obligated to savor the experience, as if I was drinking fine wine. And it’s sort of a pain. Yes, it’s a fine bar with rich overtones and subtle flavor conotations. But I don’t usually want to sit there and eat a candy bar like I’m going to have to write a report on it. I mean, sometimes I feel like a nut.
Almond Joy’s got nuts.
In a semi related note, I’m not much of a dark chocolate fan, and Milky Ways are pretty close to the bottom of my candy bar list, but Midnight Milky Ways are amazingly good.
I found dark chocolate and mint nougat Three Musketeers bars. I don’t remember where, unfortunately, but it was no more than two weeks ago. Two little bars in one candy bar shaped wrapper. Delicious.