Top 5 Popular Retro Sweets!

Top 5 Popular Retro Sweets!

What is a retro sweet?

These are old fashioned sweets. Did you know that historians have reported that society’s sweet tooth dates back as early as 8,000BC? From the 1700s onwards, hard candies and boiled sweets, many still recognisable today, were sold as medicinal cough drops by apothecaries.

Remember those sweets your nan would have in her handbag, that would line the sweet shop shelves in jars, that would keep you quiet for hours? We’re talking about the confectionery classics like Rhubarb & Custards, Sherbet Lemons, Chocolate Limes, Parma Violets, Love Hearts, Pear Drops, Acid Drops, Barley Sugars to name a few. Proper traditional sweets in very British flavours. Here are our Top 5 Popular Retro Sweets!

1. Barratt Shrimps

Known also as Barratt Candy Foam Shrimps. Barratt Shrimps are traditional retro sweets that are made by Tangerine. They look like ears! These are small pink foam shrimp shaped soft foam sweets with a very unique taste and are pink in colour. These shrimps are one of the best selling lines of the retro sweet selection. However, they are now much, much bigger. They are great for party bags and in fabulous candy buffets. These are good old favourite and still remain the same. Flavour is as super as ever.

Pink Shrimps were originally created by Barratt’s in the 1940s. Pink Shrimps come from the same Barratt family as Flumps, Milk Bottles and Strawberry Milkshakes. They do not contain shrimps or taste like shrimps. In fact, they are soft fruit flavoured chews that are only shaped like shrimp. What’s more, Pink Shrimps are even Gluten-free! 

No other shrimp comes close to a Barratts shrimp. These are definitely one of the definitive nostalgic, childhood sweets… one of the ones that almost everyone takes a mental trip back to their childhood sweetshop and list off the sweets they loved.

2. Kola Cubes

Also known as Cola Cubes. These will bring back happy memories. Good old Kola Kubes if you wanted to be completely correct! These surely were kings amongst boiled sweets. A chunk of cola flavoured boiled sweet that has been covered in an outer sugary layer for good measure, they last ages if you suck them and taste delicious, although couldn’t really be considered that great for your teeth.

 

Kola Kubes was one of those sweets that were generally bought from jars stacked on shelves behind the counter in your local sweetie shop. Normally sold by the quarter pound. As a child back in the days, you simply asked the shop assistant for the sweet of your choice and they would tip them out of the jar into some scales, then tip the sweets into a little white paper bag.

There was one problem with Kola Kubes though. They were just so tasty that one was never enough.  Once you had finished one cubic chunk of sweetie heaven another invariably popped its way into your mouth. ÂWhy was this a problem? Â Well, after 4 or 5 sweets the top of your mouth could easily become quite sore thanks to a combination of the acidic nature of the sweets and the fact the edges of the cubes could become quite sharp once you had sucked the sugary layer off.

The sweets were not only available in cola flavoured varieties. There was a pineapple variety which was just as nice. You may not realise however that there were actually two different types of Kola Kube. The cheaper type was just solid boiled sweet throughout, but the original Kola Kube manufactured by Pascalls (now part of Trebor Basset) had a chewy centre in the middle which was absolutely brilliant at sticking little bits of boiled sweet to your teeth in many hard to reach places. 

Image: Kola Cubes

3. Drumstick Lolly Sweets

The classic, retro Swizzels lolly loved by so many. Enjoy the smooth and creamy combination of raspberry and milk that makes the Drumstick flavour so nostalgic! Original raspberry and milk flavour. It is a unique combination of a chew and a lollipop on a stick made by Swizzels. Drumstick lollies have been enjoyed for 60 years. The distinct chewy texture and dual flavours have made Drumstick a firm favourite with sweet lovers for generations.

In 1957 Drumstick lolly launched, the only chewy lolly available. Did you know The Drumstick lolly is said to have been invented by accident in the 1950s, when Trevor Matlow, the son of one of Swizzels-Matlow’s founders, was experimenting with a new machine and discovered it was possible to create a lollipop with two flavours.  Milk and raspberry were chosen, though there have been many variants since, including strawberry and banana and cherry and apple.

4. Flying Saucer Sweets

Flying saucers are a flying saucer-shaped candy, about 2 inches (5 cm) wide. The flying saucer is formed from crisp, edible rice paper, or foamed corn starch. This shell is coloured, but flavourless. The sherbet-filled varieties are particularly popular in Belgium, Canada, England, France and Germany. The hollow inside is filled with a small amount of sherbet candy powder with a tart but sweet taste that is otherwise unflavoured.

Each one is quite light, weighing only about 1 1/3 grams. They are sold unwrapped in boxes in candy stores.

In America, where they are often called “Satellite Wafers”, you are likely to find variations that have teeny, hard (often) unflavoured candy balls in them instead of the sherbet powder. In eating them, some people like to bite off an edge and fish out the powder with the tip of their tongue. Others like to put the whole thing in their mouth and wait for it to dissolve.

Flying Saucer Ice Cream Sandwiches are made by the Carvel Company. They consist of two soft chocolate biscuits with a filling of soft ice cream in between them; they are sold in freezers, wrapped.

Flying Saucers as candy may have originated as a medicinal item, created in 1900 by a company called Belgica in Belgium. Belgica invented a flat, round starch-shell capsule to hold pill powder in, to make unpleasant-tasting medicines easier for patients to swallow. The Astra Sweets company of Belgium, which bought out Belgica in 1992, claims that this was the predecessor of the candy.

Flying Saucer candy seems to have been made since at least the 1950s in both America and the UK. Flying Saucer Sweets also are known as UFO Sweets. The release of a sweet made from sherbet packaged in an edible paper in the shape of a flying saucer was bound to be a hit in an era where the space race had captured the popular imagination.

5. Rhubarb & Custard

Image: Rhubarb & Custard

Ironically they contain neither rhubarb nor custard. Apparently, their history is based on a rhubarb and vanilla custard pudding that was popular, then when candy making became popular due to the importing of sugar, this pudding was made into a hard sweet. Manufactured and sold by Brays Sweets since 1867. Traditional Rhubarb & Custard Sweets of generations from an old Welsh recipe. Rhubarb & Custard is a hard-boiled sweet, crystallised in caster sugar with a traditional boiled sweet with fresh rhubarb & custard flavouring.

Jim Banard a sweet factory worker at John Bull Rock Factory invented the sweet. This was over 50 years ago and the sweets are still very popular to this date, there even was a children’s cartoon named after them, ‘The Rhubarb and Custard Show’. Jim is still alive and healthy and has taken up a career as a solo singing artist.




Banner Image: Matt Seymour-unsplash

Bernie Bassett Allsorts

Bernie Bassett Allsorts

Who is Bernie Bassett Allsorts? What is Liquorice Allsort? Liquorice Allsorts is also spelt and known as liquorice allsorts. They are assorted liquorice sugar candies sold as a mixture.

These confections are made of liquorice, sugar, coconut, aniseed jelly, fruit flavourings and gelatine. They were first produced in Sheffield, England by Bassett & Co Ltd before being taken over by Cadbury.

For more than 50 years, George Bassetts factory in Sheffield made many different types of candy. Then an incredible accident changes candy history forever. Since 1842 George had Bassett’s factory in Sheffield produced a growing number of candy varieties. Among the employees, the factory had a slightly goofy salesman, Charlie Thomson.

According to the factory own story, Thomson was in 1899 on a visit to a difficult customer in Leicester who refused to buy a single one of those sweet products. The goofy Thomson lost his sales board with the entire range of liquorice and other sweets down on the counter. When the customer saw the colourful sight of mixed candy, he was so excited that he ordered a large delivery of the new goodies. Thomson called it Bassett’s Liquorice Allsorts.

The name has been in use since then and the liquorice sweet is one long success story. Bassett’s trademark is a little man-made of sweets and he is called Bertie Bassett and had his debut in 1929.

Bertie Bassett has become a part of British popular culture. The character’s origins lie with advertising copywriter Frank Regan, who used the sweets and a number of pipe cleaners to construct what was the original version of Bertie. Check out who is Bernie Bassett Allsorts at Home below.

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Haribo Gummy Bears

5 Things You Didn't Know About Haribo Gummy Bears

Who doesn’t love gummy bears? Those sticky, chewy little bear-shaped gelatin-based candies are one of the most popular treats around. They come in a wide variety of flavors and colours. The top-selling gummy bear was produced and invented by Haribo. On December 13, 1920, Hans Riegel founded Haribo in Hans RIegel Bonn, Germany. HARIBO. Everybody knows this name especially children. They love all those sweets, particularly the one that Haribo are famous for Gummy teddy bears or Gummy bears Here are five facts about Haribo’s beloved Gummy Bears.

  1. The Inventor’s Name was Hiding in Plain Sight who created the Gummy Bear Sweets. Hans Riegel, a confectioner from the German city of Bonn, invented the product in the 1920s shortly after founding his company, which he called Haribo. To get the name, he just took the first two letters of his name as well as his home city and combined them into one word.

     

  2. Haribo uses gelatin to make their gummy sweets. In areas where pork can not be eaten they need to be made with bovine gelatin. In Turkey, there’s a Haribo factory that does just this specially, making halal/kosher gummies. Some gummy bears are mad.

     

  3. Gummy Bears are made in a machine called a starch mogu. To produce gummy bears, the design is carved into plaster, then duplicated in a tray filled with cornstarch called a starch mogul (the shape of the gummy is stamped into the starch first). The hot liquid is then poured into the molds. After they set, the molds are turned out and the starch is recycled.

     

  4. The word gummy in gummy bear comes from the original thickener used by Riegel, gum arabic (the resin of an acacia tree). He called the product Gummibären and the name stuck.

     

  5. Did you know the colours don’t always match the flavours? In the United States, Haribo gummy bears come in five flavours: raspberry (red), orange (orange), strawberry (green), pineapple (colourless), and lemon (yellow). 

Today, it’s impossible to visit a supermarket or shop without encountering several varieties of gummy bears, and they range in sizes.

Check out one of Haribo’s Starmix Advert here.