Favourite sweet - probably if you’re over 40

[AnotherDrearyDayInParadise]

DP & I have just been reminiscing about 1/2p sweets & sweets in the 70s in general.
Favourites were :
Black Jacks
Rosy apples
Fruit Salads

Bars of highland toffee that you had to break into pieces

Yes - Was going to say Mint cracknell

& Midget gems

Not midget gems - iced gems - a tiny wee biscuit with a swirl of icing on top

You can still buy iced gems 🤤

Brilliant - I thought they had gone way of all sweets ! Never seen them anywhere. They were rubbish but my Grandmother used to bring them for us. Thank you @fblake

BasiliskStare You can buy iced gems in Home Bargains. A multipack of about 6 for £1 or thereabouts .

Rhubarb and custards

Thank you @TroysMammy My maternal grandmother when she came to babysit for us , used to bring iced gems and mint cracknells. We preferred Mint Cracknell , but nibbling the bit around iced gems and then the top swirly bit is a memory I shall always have. I don't have a Home Bargains round here , but going to see my Mum soon & I think they have one so shall be getting a multipack - Thank you I honestly thought they no longer existed. ( and perhaps they should not )

Also a bit confused about sherbert pips / dips etc. I remember sherbet fountains in a cardboard tube with a liquorice straw in it. I suspect there is some health and safety guideline about that that now

Basilisk, do you remember if you sucked up the sherbet through the liquorice straw too quickly, it ended up at the back of your nose if you weren't careful?

Tootie Fruitys! They were being sold in Mr Sims the other day!

@HankNPat Yes yes & I also remember the liquorice would all go a bit gooey if you sucked the sherbet up too much & then you couldn't get any sherbet up at all so had to upend the cardboard thing which in my case usually resulted in sherbert all over school uniform and face. Or, you just dipped the liquorice in and had to lick the sherbert off the end.

They must have been the worst sweets ever , but we loved them. The design was appalling.

I usually managed about half of the sherbet before the liquorice got soggy and then having to upend the tube into my mouth. But sometimes I'd mix the remaining sherbet with some water in a small glass - liquid sherbet tasted very nice!

@HankNPat - I wish I had been friends with you back in the day. I never thought of mixing with water. I just used to get home looking like I had done 10 lines of coke ( for avoidance of doubt I have never done coke but I have read Brett Easton Ellis ) and my mother would be tutting over sherbet all over uniform.

Also ( & I realise this is getting into too much detail here ) , because the tubes were cardboard - once liquorice gone soggy , then trying to get the sherbet out of cardboard tube by upending it and trying to empty into mouth - the cardboard would go soggy as well

As I say - the worst designed sweet ever. But we all wanted them as I recall at the time.

IIRC, I was only allowed to eat them at home - not out!!!

HankNPat Clearly you were better brought up than me - although I would say I was a child for whom ITV was not allowed - perhaps why I rebelled with Sherbet fountains -Thank you - you have give me a giggle.

I wouldn't dream of commenting on your upbringing (obviously I mean that in the nicest possible way ). My parents were very hot on not eating in the street - I still wouldn't do it now! Similarly, ITV was a no-no unless there was a worthy documentary or somesuch!!

Just remembered I also used to make liquid aniseed balls, was allowed to start them off with boiling water to help the process, they were left for ages and then some more cold water added. It Was Not So Successful as the liquid sherbet

But I wonder what aniseed ball vodka would taste like?

What is that series everyone watched about the physics teacher who made drugs?

So here is a thing HankNPat - do you remember the lipgloss things which had a sort of roller ball on the top. A friend of mine found a way of prising that off and putting vodka in the receptacle and then jamming the roller ball thing in. This was I hasten to add very much later then the sherbet fountains and was spectacularly unsuccessful in a Heath Robinson sort of way. But , successful in that it didn't get spilled on uniform ( because none of it Actually came out ). That was one Latin lesson. Other than that we pretty much had to think about Virgil and his Rowan Tree.

Cola cubes, vest sweet ever!
Cola cubes, vest sweet ever!

Licorice bootlaces ,

Breaking Bad? I never watched it, but DP loved it.

Vodka 'lipgloss' - genius!

Ha ha @HankNPat - you are the Breaking bad of sherbet and aniseed balls - I never saw it either but I reckon you could have given the chap a run for his money You are wasted in whatever you do - liquid sherbet and aniseed - it's got to make sense.

Oh that has really made me hoot - thank you

In other news - what were curley wurleys other than just being able to put less chocolate in a bigger package? Never liked them and always felt there was a certain cynicism behind them.

Midget gems especially the black ones
Sweets called smokers I think, they were pink and brown and looked like small tablets. The brown ones were slightly hot.
Perfumed bon bons They were hard candy and came in pastel colours. Hard to describe their shape but some looked like little bows.
I also remember getting from a local shop hard candy sweets that were sold individually they were pink and lemon about the size of a penny chew but square and covered in sugar but some of them had money side like an old halfpenny. Think I once did find money in one.
Loved spangles especially the acid drop ones and the olde English
Brandy balls
Anything liquorice
Pear drops
Also remember Treets the ad went something like Treets they melt in the mouth and not in the hand showing a woman with gloves holding them
A few years ago I bought some Lion sweets which where the same as the Black Midgett gems they were rectangular shaped. I think I could buy them online but not sure I could trust myself with a 1kg box

I have some dip dabs and sherbet fountain knowledge! I used to buy the packaging for them!
They moved the factory to Spain, but I'm not sure how the actual machinery move went, coz it really seemed to be suck together with sherbet from about the last 100 years!

@Howzaboutye

We need your sherbet fountain knowledge ! So where were they made when in the UK ? & when moved - this is genuinely exciting insider knowledge. Sherbet dib dabs - I know nothing of - sherbet fountains ( with the yellow cardboard packaging & liquorice straw ) , were a part of my childhood.

It was a wee while ago that I worked there! But I remember buying the thousands of lolly sticks and big sweet shop jars. Dip dabs were made in the trebor basset factory in chesterfield. As were Everton mints and lots of other boiled sweets.
I can't remember buying the Sherbet foundation packaging, so that must have been made in the Sheffield factory.
You knew what day of the week it was in chesterfield, by the smell of the factory, ie each day had a regular production slot- mints was a lovely smell.