A Hard Candy Christmas: Advent 2023, DAY 11

Some candy just isn't appropriate for children. I'm not talking about the amount of sugar and artificial colors in candy. That's a subject for another day. I'm talking about confections that promote adult behaviors such as candy cigarettes or bumble gum cigars; both of which I humbly admit to imbibing. Only those outdated candies don't elate holiday memories for me. Instead, for today's Advent we're looking at Licorice Pipes.

I always got 2 or 3 licorice pipes for Christmas. They were placed in my stocking by Santa. Because of how thin and sleek these guys were packaged, I tended to get to the licorice pipes last. I imagine they just shot right down to the toe of the stocking during the stuffing process. Or maybe Santa just always put them into my stocking first. 

Nowadays, if you can find a licorice pipe, they're packaged in this clear wrapper without any sort of label or identifier. Since some countries, such as Norway have banned the candy in order to stem underage smoking, the limited labeling for licorice pipes doesn't really surprise me. However, when I was younger I seem to recall Ole Saint Nick being on the little wax paper card added to the inside of the package. I seem to recall them being called Santa's Licorice Pipes. However I cannot find any evidence of this. (Mandela Effect? Or do I have a memory of something nobody else on the Internet seems to care about?)

So what does a licorice pipe taste like? Well licorice of course. But it's a much richer dark sweet flavor thanks to the molasses. Many of you might remember how gelatinous licorice whips (I.E. Twizzlers) are. Not so with a licorice pipe. They're actually kinda soft thanks to the use of wheat flour which is extremely important for the pipes to hold their shape. Without that flour, the pipes would be all floppy and droop.

A licorice pipe would probably last me about an hour. I'd pretend that I lit it up like the real thing. Usually I would read a book or watch a Christmas special while pretending to puff away at my carbohydrated nicotine rush. About every 10 minutes or so I would have to nibble down about a half inch of pipe, as my saliva would warm up the material into a mush. Once I got to the thick bowl of the pipe, I'd just chew up the whole thing.

Now there's also been a red licorice variety of pipes. I'm not a fan of those. If I was gifted them, I'd always eat them first. As I feel that red licorice has no real taste, I wouldn't savor these like the black variety. There's just no substitute for them. But obviously someone likes the red variant as they're still made to this day. Although considering how awful the red ones are, maybe companies still make them to deter kids from smoking.

Time to be serious for just a moment. I understand with all honesty that the tobacco industry has been trying to make smoking appealing to kids for decades. My mother was a lifelong smoker and died from ovarian cancer brought about by cigarettes. Plus my being an asthmatic since age two, I've just refused to become addicted to tobacco. Besides, why buy cigarettes when you can buy comics instead?!

In order to counteract some of my affection for candies that should require an ID when you purchase them, I'm first going to share a classic anti-smoking PSA. Unlike a lot of those commercials you see on TV today, it shouldn't have anything disturbing. Then as my official Advent present for you today, I'm sharing a short 4 minute long video that details more insight about the controversy surrounding the licorice pipes from another country's perspective. 

Enjoy!