Cottage Industries - Montana Style: Ruth Lott's River Ranch Confections

Thanks to Ruth Lott, high quality chocolates have found a home in Whitehall and Cardwell. River Ranch Confections is a top-of-the-line business with enough variety that every possible occasion is covered. Lott offers horseshoe, puppy paw and heart molds, solid or filled, fruit-filled chocolate shells, and more. While the artiste behind these confections, she’s quick to acknowledge and thank friends, including Linda Wagner and Pam Polachi, who got her started and encouraged her along the way.

Ten years ago Linda Wagner invited Lott to join her to make chocolates one Christmas. The rest, as they say, is history.

“I will always be grateful to Linda for introducing me to candy making and being so generous with her knowledge and recipes,” Lott said. “My interest in creating chocolates and candies has grown exponentially since then.”

It began with making chocolates for friends, bringing them to dinner parties, and giving them as gifts. Soon Lott realized she was giving away so much chocolate she might as well turn it into a business. With the purchase of a Chocovision five-pound machine, she began to “crank it out.”

Today, River Ranch Confections creates delicious chocolates and candies in a variety of shapes and fillings, making them wonderful gifts for special occasions or simply a personal treat. Lott’s inventory keeps growing. Her mold collection includes cowboy hats, horseshoes, horse heads, puppy paws, golf balls, music notes, heart molds, shamrocks, flowers, Legos, candy bars, and more.

She has molds she can fill with caramel cream, mint fondant, or almonds; a candy made with dark chocolate, almonds, and dried cherries; homemade marshmallows, which can be tinted or covered in white, milk, or dark chocolate and/or decorated with sprinkles; chocolate shells in white, milk or dark chocolate which she likes to fill with fresh fruit, and during the Christmas holidays, a small number of customized Advent Calendars.

“My latest creation is a killer candy bar which I call my Cow Pony Candy Bar, a square of chocolate embossed with a saddled quarter horse,” she said. “It’s a really pretty mold and I’m learning how to create the horse in different chocolates so I can do a milk chocolate horse surrounded by white chocolate or vice versa, or a dark chocolate horse surrounded by milk chocolate, as well as creating a solid candy bar with one chocolate.”

Describing River Ranch Confections as “Top Shelf Chocolates and Custom Candies Handcrafted in Cardwell, Montana” says it all. All are created by Guittard, one of the top American artisan chocolate producers. The caramel cream and mint fillings are homemade using only the freshest ingredients, as are the homemade marshmallows. There are no preservatives, with the exception of those that may be in food coloring or sprinkles used to tint or decorate the candy. Lott freshly makes everything else in the candy at home.

She loves the fun and all the creativity and is open to accommodate any occasion with a specific mold.

“The thing that’s really fun and sets me apart is I have a wide selection of molds and I’m willing to accommodate any theme if I can,” Lott said. If someone wants chocolate in a particular shape and I don’t have that mold, they’re welcome to go online and purchase the mold and I’ll be happy to create the chocolates for them.”

Lott came to Montana in 2006, when she purchased her ranch in Cardwell. She believes her confections are very much a function of where she lives, crediting the untapped market here as her motivation.

“Sophisticated chocolates aren’t generally available in Whitehall or Cardwell. Most people, if they want gifts or special occasion chocolates, have to go to Butte, Bozeman, or order online. So I wanted to develop a more refined and sophisticated product for my home base,” she said.

Lott treasures the memories she and Linda Wagner created over the years as they experimented and expanded their chocolate-craft knowledge. She’s grateful she was able to inform Linda she’d received the Cottage Industry certification and started a business during their last visit a few days before Linda died. Lott misses not being able to call and let Wagner know about her successes and failures as she always had.

Another debt goes to Setting’s Pam Polachi, who encouraged Lott to go into business after seeing her chocolates, also allowing Lott to sell from Settings in late winter.

“Pam has been very generous with her knowledge on every level and I hope to continue to find opportunities to sell River Ranch Confections at Settings in the future,” Lott said.

Lott extends her gratitude to all her taste-testing friends and family who’ve offered their encouragement and constructive criticism during the past ten years and hopes her customers will do the same. She remains very excited about what she still has to learn.

At the end of the day, Lott hopes her wares speak for themselves and that word will spread from those who sample them.

“I would like River Ranch Confections to be synonymous with beautiful, delicious candies that are top quality, unique, and fun to give and receive,” she said.

For more information: The best way to order candy is by phone, 406-599-2560, or by email at rhlrrc@gmail.com.