For my birthday, my dear Bubby sent me down a big old sack of 25 different kinds of candies that are either black licorice or have some black licorice component to them. Over the last week or so I’ve been opening a new kind every two or three days and sampling it. I’ve shared with my dear children and beloved wife. Basically, we’re going crazy with the licorice here. As I sample new licorice candies, I will apprise you of their licoricey worthiness. Mind you, I am not being paid to endorse any particular kind of candy. Also mind you, if you want to pay me to write whatever you want me to write about whatever candy, I will gladly oblige you provided that the income eases any pangs I might feel about sacrificing my journalistic integrity.  You will have to pony up an ox-cart full of hundred dollar bills if you expect me to write anything even remotely positive about those godawful wax bottles that have the horrible syrup in them.

Also mind you again, I have googled around a bit, and the folks over at Brian Pipa’s candyaddict.com site have the bases covered as far as candy reviews go, so you might head on over there and check it out. Incidentally, you might just see the pictures I am using here over there as well which makes sense because well, they were over there first. I figure that everything balances out because I’d imagine that my mention here will send two or three visitors over there to check things out. Win-win.

Licorice Dollars

Licorice Dollars. Not legal tender.

Licorice Dollars. Not legal tender.

The first box I opened and sampled was the theater size box of Licorice Dollars, an artificially flavored confection produced by the Farley’s & Sathers Candy Company out of Round Lake, MN.  The front of the box says “Heide Quality Candies Since 1869,” but that’s only a front for the Minnesota folks. As soon as I am through here I am going to call Jesse Ventura on the red phone to straighten those lutefisk eaters out.  And yes, I realize that Ventura is no longer the governor of the “Summer of ‘99 Timber Blowdown State,” but with his gigantic arms, he still wields considerable clout amongst the pasty political types.

The Black Licorice Dollars are a good candy; the licorice flavor tastes pretty good.  The texture right out of the box has a certain stiffness to it–try to start chomping away and you’ll probably pull out your fillings, but let a dollar warm up in your mouth for a bit and the candy becomes more palatable.

Sonny Boy and Baby Girl did not complain about the stiff texture of the Licorice Dollars; instead, they ate them greedily (running into the dining room at dessert time POST HASTE) and then spending the next twenty minutes gouging the dollar remnants off of their little teeth with their fingers.

Ms. AlphaLima has eaten a few dollars and hasn’t really shown her figurative hand as to her preferences.

I like them pretty good.  Were I in a theater, I would not pay $3.50 for a box of them, but they are good.

Here’s an interesting historical note to conclude: if Heide Quality Candies started producing Black Licorice Dollars at their startup in 1869, they would have named the candy after a denomination of currency that was actually worth $2.50 when weighed against the consumer price index.  At least that’s what this genealogy site says.  The page also notes that before 1861 barter figured heavily into American economics.  I surmise that in 1869 the barter economy was still alive and well; from this I conclude that the Heide Co. might have, in a fit of patriotic duty, named their candy the “dollar” to stimlulate interest in the new-fangled currency.  That and the fact that naming their product “the licorice equivalent of seven chickens or one-sixteenth of a steer freshly slaughtered” would have killed their sales.

Another historical aside:  the Transcontinental Railroad was completed in ‘69; many of the workers chose to be paid in licorice dollars.

History can be interesting, can’t it?

You know who else just enjoyed the heck out of Black Licorice Dollars?  Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, that’s who.