Who Else Remembers The Grandma Candy That 'Tastes As Bad As The Name Sounds'?
Let's just say it is not a fan-favorite.
It wasn’t a trip to your grandmother’s house without trying to sneak from her trove of treats, especially whatever could be found inside her milk glass (or crystal) candy dish. Grandma candy, which is the affectionate, all-encompassing name for the many different old-fashioned candies your grandmother would keep in her candy dish or purse, has always been as beloved as it is divisive, depending on the type and your taste buds.
Amongst the nostalgic favorites such as Strawberry Bon Bons in their crinkly themed packaging, perfectly tart Lemon Drops, and the confusingly banana-flavored Circus Peanuts, there was one type of grandma confection that many (including our readers) despised to see: horehound candy.
What Does Horehound Candy Taste Like?
Made from the extract of the horehound plant, these candies aren’t quite like the brightly colored, cavity-inducing sweets that you loved to grab from grandma’s stash. Instead, horehound candy tastes distinctly bittersweet and almost medicinal, due to its herby main ingredient that gets only slightly jazzed up with sugar or molasses. Unsurprisingly, it’s garnered quite the off-putting reputation.
Horehound candy appears amber in color and can be tooth-crackingly hard, especially after it has sat in the candy dish a bit too long—a common complaint amongst our nostalgic readers. It also has certain medicinal properties, including as a throat-soothing lozenge or an appetite suppressant, which made more health-conscious (and less sugar-approving) grandmas quite the big fans.
History of Horehound Candy
Horehound candy has origins going back centuries in folk medicine, when the horehound plant was used to brew teas and used as remedies for various throat and digestive issues. Eventually, hard candies were made from the plant and carried in many apothecaries and general stores. Old-fashioned candy company Claeys, founded in 1919, crafted perhaps the most popular horehound candy that you can still find today in select stores and online, so that you can still get that unique fix.
