Humans have spent millennia bottling lust into tonics, roots, and wild pantry items. “Aphrodisiac” literally nods to Aphrodite, the OG brand ambassador for sex, beauty, and bad decisions. Aphrodite herself was born from the sea atop an oyster shell, which basically stamped oysters as the poster child for sex and beauty. Naturally, Romans stocked their orgies with them, just to keep the energy… juicy. And people like Casanova downed 50 oysters just for breakfast.
Read on to see what humans have created in the past with all in the name of lust and pleasure and why our Date Night Chocolates are superior to their taste and functionality!
Whale vomit in your hot chocolate?
Meet ambergris—that waxy, ocean-aged gunk expelled by sperm whales, prized for centuries as a perfume fixative and a culinary flex. In early modern Europe (and in 18th-century London’s chocolate heyday), cooks sometimes shaved a whisper of ambergris into hot chocolate; food historian Tasha Marks even lists it among period add-ins alongside cinnamon, rosewater, jasmine… and yes, ambergris.
It wasn’t just scent; ambergris shows up across historical aphrodisiac lore (Casanova, monks, and breakfast eggs all make cameos), and was treated as a rare, musky stimulant for body and mood.
Chocolate before the bar
Quick reality check: in Europe, chocolate started as a drink, not a bar. England meets cacao around 1600; eating chocolate doesn’t really take off until the 19th century. In between? Endless spiced, frothy cups—sometimes perfumed with vanilla, chilli, floral waters… and the occasional whale truffle.
The French letters
17th-century it-girl Madame de Sévigné wrote giddily (and sometimes nervously) about chocolate’s powers in letters to her daughter—perfect snapshots of Europe’s chocolate-as-tonic era. Public Domain Review quotes her fretting: “Are you not afraid that it will burn your blood?”—equal parts desire and diagnosis.
Contemporary translations and anthologies back up just how fashionable—and medically “interesting”—those cups were.
Roots that rise from the east
Asia had its own love language: ginseng. In the Shénnóng Běncǎo Jīng (1st–2nd c. CE), ginseng is logged as a vitality tonic; later commentators even describe warm, sexually energizing effects—hence its long association with virility and stamina in Traditional Chinese Medicine. There are multiple researches and studies that showed the impact of ginseng and this is why we added this centuries-old aphrodisiac to our Date Night Chocolates.
The modern take
If the idea of sea-musk cocoa makes you queasy, you’re not alone. Luckily, we’ve evolved. Date Night Chocolates keep the historical heritage—ginseng for vitality—then layer in maca (energy) and damiana (libido lore with centuries of use in the Americas). The science on damiana’s effects is still emerging, but its traditional role as a “love herb” is well documented. Translation: foreplay, minus the flotsam.
