General Chat

Icing sugar and cream of tartar.

You can make yourself a huge amount for next to nothing.

i love liquorice and eat far too much of it. Sugar free Pontefract cakes are the ones of choice at the moment.

They never called them fountains here Sharron, but I can understand the naming of them...

When a couple of near adults were teenage neighbours they made some sherbert, in a little packet with a straw instead of the liquorice, and sold them to neighbours.. quite enterprising of them and I bought a couple.. they also make nice fizzy drinks.

Sharron PLEASE don't mention liquorice, I have eaten a bIg packet today.

That is a sherbet fountain, a sherbet dab is a lolly with a packet of sherbet.

One of our carers was really into sherbet dabs but her husband was forced to get a sherbet fountain for her.

Never having had a sherbet fountain before, she ate it like a sherbet dab. Several other carers were unaware that there was a hole all the way through the liquorice and that you could suck the sherbet up through it.

I think I would like these original "winter mixture" have not seen them here.. used to buy Irish Moss jubes from a chemist.. and I have always thought that the balls are the best part of a clove.

I do miss honeycomb and sherbert dabs ..where you sucked the sherbert through a licorice straw and then we would get into sherbert dab "fun fights" and blow the sherbert and get covered in powder.

We did graduate to choko fights, only thing that vegetable was fit for.. but the prickles could hurt if you got whacked in the face.. Choko is a NZ vegetable that my parents used to boil and serve with white sauce.. it is horrible.

There are some good liquorice sites on-line.

I have a friend who goes mad for Pontefract cakes.

Maryanna my OH loves Lemon Sherberts and is indeed very fussy about them . Bassets do good ones but we can only order them online. So Morrisons do a pretty good second choice.

I know what you mean Sharron. A while ago we visited one of those, " this is what things used to be like in the olden days " places. They had several shops including a sweetie shop.

I bought some Winter Mix..... It was VILE '!!!!!!!

Not at all like it used to be.

The other thing I keep trying to buy like the proper old ones, are Lemon Sherberts. They never seem to taste of lemon or even have any Sherbert in them.

Bah Humbug.........

M.

Could this be something more 'traditional':

http://www.thewelshsweetshop.com/acatalog/Traditional_Handmade_unwrapped_sweets.html

Sadly the old Winter Mixture seems to be no more. I loved em and our local sweetshop sold them by by the qtr pounds , you could ask for two ounces!! But they were unwrapped and in the big glass bottles . I loved the brown striped ones and the purple stripped ones that tasted strongly of cloves.

Our daughter was born in Sept 1958 and they were my passion then . the local shop stayed open til 9pm and i would be resisting all the time only to succumb some days and rush down to buy a quarter of winter mixtures just before they closed

The ones we get now just dont measure up to the old unwrapped ones

Maybe I am showing my age [sweets were a bit thin on the ground during the war] but I have never heard of Winter Mixture.

If they had cloves and spices in, were they meant as cough sweets?

I bought some cherry lips - only from a little shop near us I might add. They tasted nothing like the ones I used to love as a child.

You can buy 250 grams of them for £2. 47p but I don't know what the delivery charge is on small orders.

Kath. x

I have had a look at the site again, at the handmade ones.

They look very tempting BUT, if I should buy them and not like them either, I would be £16 light and be the proud possessor of three pounds of sweets I don't like, going sticky in a kilner jar.

Sharron,

:-D :-D :-D :-D

Maybe some kind soul would send you one through the post to test for authenticity before embarking on an epic journey in the search for the 'Disappearing Clove Balls.'
I would but unfortunately dont like them or should i say didnt as a child.

Fingers crossed for you.

Sue

:-)

Oh! Sharron, I've said it before.........you have a way with wums...oooops worms....oops again,

WORDS........

"A quarter of" definitely have clove flavour in the mixture. Reading the reviews on there I think you probably should try the handmade winter mixture rather than the ordinary winter mixture. It seems the handmade variety have more flavours.

Kath. x

So they are authentic on there then? Clove balls that make your mouth a bit numb, proper funny flavours?

You have to realize that I have been through the extreme trauma of buying Winter Mixture that did not come up to standard in any way.

Once bitten, twice shy and all that.

Could I, perhaps, come round and have a little go with your Winter Mixture.

I was going to ask if I could have a little suck of your clove balls but why play into the hands of the RR merchant?

As someone has mentioned 'A Quarter of' is an online sweetie shop. Great service as well.

I get my winter mixture from there. They are fab.

But beware if you go there, you will buy loads of other old fashioned sweets.

I visit the site about every other month and ration myself to a set amount. Otherwise I would just go mad.... :-D