My Love Affair with...Licorice!

Licorice — just the word makes my mouth water.

It started many. many years ago when I was a child in the candy store eyeing everything on the shelves and deciding where my dime or quarter would best be spent. It landed on Nibs — with its exotic wrappers and small cut tubes of black "licwish" inside.
  

                 

With thanks to  R. Jason Bennion  
who has a collection of packaging...

...he actually bought these on Ebay!

candyblog.com

These and Good & Plenty — oh how I loved those little pink and white candy-coated bullets of licorice!  There was this great sound they made sliding back and forth in the box at first crowded and then slowly fewer and fewer rattling around in the box until just a single, solitary pink pellet is left and then — NO MORE!

Yes, I'm not forgetting Twizzlers.  They were next on my licorice menu — first black, then red.  

Sometimes I'd bite off both ends and use the red like a straw in my soda.  Other times I'd leave the bag open so the sticks would get hard and I could suck on'em and they'd last even longer.  Then Twizzlers came out with brown, chocolate "twists" because actually if it's not black, it's not really licorice and they know that and call the strawberry and the chocolate twists.  Once they started with cherry and pull n' peel and citrus, well I gave up on Twizzlers and only buy them when there's no other licorice to be found.

But then (and I can't remember HOW) I came upon the mother lode of licorice in Manhattan's theatre district...

MYZEL'S  

Licorice of the WORLD

From their website:

We are the Myzel family: Myself, Kamila, and my mother Lucy, and we are traditional European chocolatiers. 

Our selections include:

• Chocolates, Cookies & Truffles: Chocolate nut bars, Almond butter crunch, Ultimate chocolate cookie, Truffles, and Figaro truffles
• Gift Baskets
• Licorice: Over 100 licorice flavors from Europe

We have one of the largest selections of black licorice, gourmet licorice, and European licorice in the United States. 

We bring licorice candy to licorice lovers who yearn for that good, old-fashioned licorice in the way it used to be. 

The unmistakable taste of real licorice comes through in our selection of what the world has to offer.

Visit our midtown Manhattan store today!

A tiny crowded shop filled to the brim with candy, chocolates, cookies, treats and LICORICE GALORE!  Jars and jars and jars of it...from Holland, Italy, Finland (my latest favorites) in every shape and color and taste sensation — sweet and salty and dark and medicinal — they have it all.

Photo by David Stanke

I took this photo from Myzel's website because they did such a great job of it...

Below some of my latest stash (courtesy of my husband) though I must say it's missing some of my very favorites...oh well, it just means I'll HAVE to go back there to replenish my supply.  

If you love licorice, you should go TOO!