After a near fatal rafting accident in 1985, Jim Walsh moved his family to Hawaii, and over the next ten years created the first U.S.-grown cacao plantation and line of chocolate products.  His Hawaiian Vintage became the world’s first vintage varietal chocolate, and is lauded by The New York Times as the world’s best tasting chocolate.

Jim’s love for cultivating and harvesting the land and its products led him to start growing cacao in Mexico, and eventually cultivate agave. Walsh is the creator and co-founder of Kimo Sabe Mezcal. Mezcal is the broader category of tequila, agave-based liquors. His idea was to create a sustainable mezcal of top quality, and Kimo is now a triple gold medal winner and named “Best of Class International Specialty Spirit” by the American Distilling Institute (ADI) Spirits competition. As the founder of Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate, he moved his family to Hawaii for a “1950’s-style” experience, starting the first chocolate company on the islands. He is also a founding member of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, and chairman of Mind Matter AI.

Walsh is considered one of the world’s leading experts on chocolate and he is widely published and quoted in New York Times, USA Today, The Economist, The London Times, The Sunday Hour, The Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, CNN, Fox News, PBS, ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC, CBS, Atlantic Monthly, Newsweek, Gourmet Magazine, Country Living, and Food & Wine, BBC, CNN, PBS and many others.