Do you clamour for cola bottles, or wish for wine gums? We want to know
It’s dark outside, you’re underpaid and you have no plans tonight. What is the first thing you do? Go online and search for a career on a sun-kissed island? Make a concerted effort to work harder as of tomorrow for that elusive pay rise? Or is tonight the night you finally quit smoking?
Sugar
No, probably none of the above. Instead, it’s almost a given that the easiest thing to do is to reach for some alcohol-related substance... and something sweet. Indeed it turns out that just in these last few months, the UK consumed 2.9 million bags of ‘hard candy’ sweets. Sales of confectionary have, all in all, risen by 5% in the last year.
What is it about sweets?
It’s hard to work out what prompted this rise, especially since the British haven’t exactly fallen out of love with, say, the biscuit.
However, there might be one explanation.
Perhaps I’m alone in thinking this, but in the last few years, I’ve found I can’t keep up with the reinvention of crisps. Backed by one Gary Lineker and a whole host of increasingly immature television adverts, it seems we are no longer satisfied with a mere Ready Salted or Salt and Vinegar packet. Instead, we’ve incited the production of such crisps like, ‘Tomato Ketchup’, ‘Sweet Chilli Chicken’, ‘Chargrilled Steak’ and their unexpected popularity – reflected in their booming sales – have made them competitors to the more traditional flavours.
But sweets seem to be doing the complete opposite. The sweet world has been staging a rather dramatic age reversal through the re-introduction of ‘retro sweets’. And what’s more, the emergence – and subsequent popularity - of shops such as Ye Old Sweete Shope, to fit alongside other long-standing confectionary-selling establishments (Hope and Greenwood and Gordan & Durward being just two) prove that we are all in fact enjoying this change.
In many ways, this move has sought to bring back the long-lost tradition of high-shelved corner shops, their kilo jars of sweets and the small brown paper bags schoolchildren once filled with shrapnel’s worth of sherbets.
In those shops, it wasn’t the large grab packs filled with fried eggs or hard, marshmallow hearts that did the trick, because every sweet stood on its own, for itself and could be bought individually (rather like pick ‘n’ mixes today, though without the excessive price tag). Here, fizz balls, floral gums, aniseed balls, parma violets, cough candy, coconut rolls, flying saucers and fizz bombs ruled the roost.
What’s our favourite?
Over the last week, Lovefood.com has taken to the streets to find Britain’s top ten. From a plethora of results, these were our top five:
5. Trebor Bassett’s Dolly Mixture
These 1920s creations do exactly what they say on the tin: they’re simply a mixture of addictive coloured sweets of various small shapes. In these little bags, you’re bound to find that no two little pieces look identical – except for when it comes to the taste of course, which people described to me as, ‘tangy’, ‘sweet’ and ‘always a surprise’. ‘Perfect for a treat in a child’s lunchbox’, a mother added in a nod to Trebor Bassett’s quaint and convenient packaging.
4. Rowntree’s Jelly Tots
‘Jelly Tots are brilliant because they come in small bags’, was the main compliment these chewy gumdrop sweets received. Inside the bright yellow bag, one finds a sugar-coated strawberry pellet, a lime one, lemon and blackcurrant, too, but the variety is likely to be lost on someone with a large appetite. ‘They’re so tiny, it’s easy to empty out all the contents into the palm of your hand in just one go, and then it’s just as easy to put them all in your mouth,’ I was told by a sweet-toothed avid fan.
3. Rhubarb & Custards
In appearance, these hard-boiled sweets look rather like pear drops. Half yellow, half pink, this sweet, however, carries the bonus of owning two flavours. The creaminess of the custard offsets the tang of the Rhubarb side, coming together to produce ‘the best little pudding in a suckable sweet’, one said.
2. Cola Bottles
It is the world’s most popular drink, so it isn’t a surprise that a confection of the same size and colour was to rise to popularity. Cola bottles, whether cherry, fizzy, giant or plain, are made by all sorts of companies and tend to be soft like other ‘gummi sweets’: teddy bears, rings and worms. But what is their real appeal? ‘They actually taste like coca cola. The bottles are really authentic, too, and it’s just an all-round widely-available sweet.’
1. Maynard’s Wine Gums
Each pellet reads either ‘Port’, ‘Sherry’, ‘Champagne’ or ‘Claret’, but tee-totallers need have no fear. Wine Gums have confused many people over the years – do the sweets contain alcohol? No, is the answer. But while Maynard’s - who have been making the confections since 1909 (and continue to do so from their factory in Sheffield) - have always sought long and hard to quash this belief, they know that in effect, it’s part of the Wine Gums’ charm. One explained, ‘When you chew them, there’s a unique taste that no other sweet manages. They have a moreish texture and they’re perfect for getting rid of hangover. They’re worth it for their size alone because they’re always surprisingly big and plentiful.’
Do you have a favourite? Let us know!
Image by Andrew Bowden