July 2024

 

 

 

 

 

Caramel Hard Candy

Minoo

In an attempt to figure out who manufactured these candies, I ended up down a rabbit hole and learned a lot about them. Apparently, Minoo is one of the oldest manufactures of hard candies in Iran. I’m not really sure if Iran has a reputation for hard candies, but I still feel like it’s an accomplishment. It’s also made in Iran, I feel like I’ve only tasted a few Iranian candies in my life, so that’s kind of special too. It’s also apparently a hard candy, which is a little surprising to me because the first one of these that I tasted was very soft and chewy, while the second one was more in the hard candy realm. I was actually going to start this review with the fact that I wasn’t sure what consistency these were supposed to be, but now I know.

Flavour wise they’re often described as caramel, but I would say they’re closer to a butterscotch, or even closer to a rum raisin without the raisins. There is a slightly boozy flavour to these that makes them feel a little more sophisticated than a simple caramel. I’m sure there’s no booze in them, but it feels like there could be. It’s a flavour you don’t find very much in candy, and even when I was a kid it was a flavour we only found in our grandparents candy. Maybe I’m just getting old and learning to appreciate it, or maybe I’m just happy to have a different take on caramel.

The one fascinating thing about these candies is the size, they’re very small. I would say they’re about one quarter the size of a standard hard candy. Fortunately the flavour is fairly powerful so it doesn’t feel like you need anymore. I’ve just never really had such a small, individually wrapped hard candy before and I’m not really sure why they made them so small.