WEST LOOP — Visitors to downtown Chicago have long wondered about the strong, chocolatey smell in the area around the West Loop between the Blommer building on Kinzie St. and Lower Wacker, and we here at Chicago Genius Herald have found the source! The sweet aroma can be attributed to one really big Yankee candle, owned by Georgia Hozmin, 27, who lives in a nearby condo building.
The chocolate scent has long puzzled and delighted pedestrians in the West Loop. Some theories suggested it was just a coincidental combination of river funk, exhaust, and runoff from the nearby Chicago Tribune printing facility. In truth, the source of the smell is just a really big candle that Hozmin lights to cover up the smell of her two cats, Muffin, 17, and “Bad Boy” James, 3, and her casual marijuana habit. The extra large candle was purchased at a Yankee Candle outlet store in the Chicago Ridge Mall in 2019.
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“Yeah, my ex used to say my place smelled like cat ass, so my mom bought this for me,” said Hozmin. “She’s always injecting herself into my life, and Trevor was a piece of shit, but whatever. Yankee Candles are expensive, especially when they’re 500 lbs.”
The candle, part of Yankee’s “American Empire” collection, promises an estimated 35,040 hours of use and comes in a wide array of food-adjacent scents. When asked why she selected “Dutch Chocolate,” Hozmin told us her mom picked it for her without asking, and jokingly told her not to eat it.
“She thinks I’m fucking stupid, I can’t stand her.”
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“Huh, It’s just a big candle in a woman's apartment?” said Paul Allenford, 36, a computer analyst who works in the area. “How does she breathe in there?”
“At this point I barely notice it,” said Hozmin, who invited this Chicago Genius Herald reporter up to her apartment to see the candle and do some casual bong rips. “Good thing, I can’t really blow it out, if I do the entire apartment fills with smoke.”
So next time you’re out and about in the West Loop and smell that chocolatey smell, you can tell your friends, or any strangers that will listen, that the smell is there to cover up two territorial cats and a marijuana habit that’s definitely crossing into dependency. And if the delicious smell makes you hungry, maybe stop by the Blommer building, which is reportedly some kind of candy factory!
