A Hard Candy Christmas: Advent 2023, DAY 22

I've already mentioned the importance of Hickory Farms products during the holidays. Along with the Melty Mints, there's another candy that is synonymous with my Christmas time snacking and that's Strawberry Bon Bons.

In every Hickory Farms gift set, you would have several of these tiny red hard candies decorating the empty space. Each bon bon was wrapped in this red and green wrap that when twisted on the top, they looked like tiny strawberries. The red part of the wrapper was even decorated with these yellow dots to represent the seeds on the berry.

While made of hardened sugar, the middle was soft, containing a dollop of strawberry filling. You basically had 2 options with this candy - suck on them until you reach the center or you pull a maneuver like that owl in the Tootsie Roll Pop commercials and after a few seconds in your mouth, you just crunch into it.

Many of us grew up with grandparents who had a small bowl of these candies floating around the house during the holidays. With this history, the assumption could be made that Strawberry Bon Bons debuted sometime in the 1950s or 60s. However, researchers have found references to this candy dating back to the mid 1800s in France of all places. A food blogger found a recipe from 1861 mentioning these sweets as 'French Style' drop candies. No mention of when companies started wrapping them to look like strawberries. However, most agree that Hickory Farms was the ones who made that the definitive way to package them as dozens of confectioners have since followed suit.

I didn't realize this, but Swiss Colony includes Strawberry
Bon Bons with their gift sets too!

The one type of videos I don't want to share on my Advent are product reviews of the candies I feature. I've already given my opinion on them and I feel like some of those reviewers only do it for A) the money and B) to be obnoxious. (Despite trying to get approved by Blogger and Google, I don't get paid for any of the posts I make on this blog.)

Unfortunately once I eliminate those review videos, there's nothing else about today's featured product. So, I'm making a substitution. Here's a very satisfying video showing how a candy company in Florida still manufacturers a type of strawberry hard candy using a old school candy press.

Enjoy!