Roulette Chocolate

Eating chocolate is not something most of us usually associate with raw, buttock-clenching tension. A quick straw poll around Firebox HQ showed that the closest any of us has ever come to this pleasure-meets-pain-style sensation was when we shared a tube of Smarties whilst watching the final episode of 24.

The thing is, chomping on choccy has always been a relatively humdrum experience... Until now.

Because by combining one of life's great pleasures (chocolate) with one of death's best buddies (Russian Roulette), clever confectioners have come up with this fiendishly amusing gift box.

Seated in individual compartments, twelve chocolate bullets lay waiting to be bitten into. Although eleven of the sweet little slugs contain delicious praline centres, one conceals a seriously red hot chilli that's guaranteed to blow your head off - metaphorically, at least.

The great thing about encasing something so palate-peelingly hot in chocolate is that it takes a few seconds for the 'victim' to register that he or she has just bitten into the wrong bullet. So relief and delight are rapidly replaced by abject horror, an expression reminiscent of Kenneth Williams getting into a hot bath, a volley of garbled expletives and a manic sprint to the nearest tap!

As far as Russian Roulette-style games go, this is right up there with old chestnuts like the Beer Hunter - you know, when you shake up a couple of cans, mix them with a dozen untouched ones, and then jerk the ring pulls in close proximity to your head.