The sounds of the city are dampened by the steady, silent snowfall, and soft candlelight glowing in every window. Christmas is here and New Years is just around the corner. To complete the mood, all that is needed is a bowl of luxurious candy.
It could be chocolate, that old melt-in-your-mouth favourite, with all its luscious, surprising fillings. It might be the more unconventional liquorice in one of its many creative forms, or the timeless soft toffee with its chewy and juicy attributes. Or it could be a classic candy cane that you can savour throughout the season.
Whatever your fancy, you can’t go wrong with Stockholm’s candy makers, who combined could easily give Willy Wonka a run for his money.
The windows at Pärlans are fogged up from the warmth of caramel cooking and candlelight contrasted with the winter frost outside. The little locale smells of orange and star anise (one of Pärlan’s signature Christmas flavours) and as always, it feels like the most swinging socialite afternoon tea party, with its antique décor, jazz tunes and overall vintage touch. The queue of customers reaches all the way to the door, the enormous popularity of the store no doubt due to Pärlans newly-released book, Kolor, Jazz och Bakverk. Since its release, it has been riding high on all the best-seller lists and it recently landed the girls an appearance on TV. The store has even started selling raw ingredients for your own home-made efforts.
All of this has in no way diminished the demand for those scrumptious toffees which one can observe being made by a small army of stripe-bearing, lipstick-wearing girls, each sporting a unique hairstyle inspired by their nostalgic pursuit.
It all started just two years ago, when Lisa Ericson got back from a trip to Tokyo where she had been seduced by the creative Japanese candy culture and was inspired to make some of her own. The goal was to make something that was both beautiful and delicious; after experimenting with marshmallows and jelly candies, she settled on soft toffees, which had been very popular back in the 1920s-40s. It’s an era that Lisa holds dear, and for her it was therefore logical to recruit some of her friends from swing dancing and the Stockholm vintage scene to help start the business.
“We just threw ourselves into it,” says Isabella Gaman Wong, one of the original ‘Pearls.’ “We got a lot of orders in the beginning and it has just continued to grow ever since. People liked the boxes as Christmas gifts and were drawn to the store because of the concept. Having this concept is an advantage because it makes people very curious about us and is a great way to get people to come into the shop.”
“We are pretty much the only ones on the Swedish market that produce these soft caramels. Our caramels appeal to people because we only use very good ingredients and we use organic products as much as possible. There’s a lot of love and hard work behind each caramel, since we make them by hand.”
“People are going back to buying things that are handmade. I think it’s because of how society is today, everything’s been kind of unstable with the economic situation in the world and when people don’t feel safe anymore they tend to grasp at things that are traditional. It makes us feel more secure somehow. And of course it’s very common now that people think more about the environment and that’s a big part of the vintage culture as well – to reuse things and find ways to turn away from mass consumption.”
“Our customers consist of pretty much all ages and social groups. We were never interested in creating something for just one specific group, but wanted to create an exclusive product that’s inclusive. And it feels really good to have made something that appeals to so many people.”
Ejes’ legacy goes all the way back to 1923, when Judith Andersson started up her sweet store on Östermalm. As the popularity of the store grew, another shop was opened up and Judith started manufacturing her own chocolate and confectionary. Her son, Eje, later took over and when he retired in the late 1980s, he chose the Ardebäck family as suitable heirs to the long-established chocolate business. Under their command, the company has been appointed the Royal Court chocolate supplier and Queen Silvia has even been known to visit the shop herself from time to time.
Marie Louise Ardebäck is a warm and welcoming woman who treats all her customers as dear friends and the transactions here are chatty and unhurried. She and her husband have kept the classic look of the shop, which brings you back to the golden years of the little mom-and-pop candy stores, and Marie and her colleagues behind the wood-framed glass counters look the part in their frilly aprons. The fragrance of fruit-filled truffles hits me before I even get to see all the confectionary pieces lined up on their gold trays, waiting to be picked out by candy connoisseurs. And with so many mouth-watering flavours to choose from, this is no easy task.
“We are still making chocolate in the same way as Judith and Eje did back in their day. Our pralines are made here at the store and are completely free of preservatives and additives. They are always fresh when they emerge from production, which can take up to two days.
“Another thing that hasn’t changed since the store opened up back in the 1920s is the service and quality. Back in those days this was the norm, people would come in and ask questions about the product and get tips about similar products and so on. This is something that is coming back more and more now that people are becoming more conscious about what they eat and how they shop.”
“What’s been one of the most enjoyable things about working here is getting to know the people that come in here. Some of our customers have been coming here since before we took over. When we started running the shop 25 years ago we’d get young parents in with their little kids, and today I get people in their twenties going ‘Don’t you remember me?’ It’s great to get to follow our customers generation after generation.”
A few years ago, Elin Forseius started thinking how unfair it was that there were so many chocolate stores in Stockholm, but nowhere supporting and supplying her own personal favourite – the less-appreciated but no less delicious liquorice.
She started to form a plan of opening up her own liquorice store, but people told her it would never work and that she should open up a chocolate store instead, but Elin was undeterred – she simply didn’t like chocolate that much.
So in 2007, with the odds stacked against her, a tiny shop christened Lakritsroten was born on Odengatan. Five years later, the company has moved to a much bigger location on Sveavägen and it is thriving as the only niche store serving Stockholm’s liquorice enthusiasts, with over 500 varieties and a selection drawn from all over the world.
The aroma is already strong from three doors down, leaving passers-by in no doubt about what commodity is being sold here. The grey and purple colour scheme suits the product well, and the variety is indeed overwhelming. Not only can you get sweet, salmiak, peppery, hard and natural liquorice (to name just a few), but also liquorice flavoured tea, mustard, marmalade, syrup, salt, and even glögg, as well as liquorice-scented candles for the Christmas spirit. And who can resist those black skipper’s pipes or salmiak-covered Dracula bonbons that just set your mouth on fire.
“Liquorice had become something of a forgotten candy and people don’t see it as fine candy, but recently we’ve noticed a growing liquorice trend and now it actually has the same amount of fans as chocolate,” says manager Marie Östlund. “It’s not as snobby as chocolate somehow – it’s more like the people’s candy. It’s also kind of fun and eccentric and has a very wide range. It’s not just candy – it’s also used as flavouring for other things and people forget that it’s an old medicinal herb that is very good for your skin.”
“We get all kinds of people in here, from small kids that don’t like liquorice that much but want to try it, to old people who don’t eat much candy anymore but ate liquorice as children and see it as nostalgic. We also get quite a lot of foreigners that are looking for liquorice from their country, as we have liquorice from all over the world.”
As the “polkagris” was invented in Gränna, it was natural that this would be Polkapojkarna’s setting when they opened up their business 20 years ago. This beloved straight candy cane was first rolled in Gränna in 1859 by Amelia Eriksson, a poor young widow trying to find a way of supporting herself and her children after her husband passed away. The recipe was kept a secret until her death, but the tradition lives on and Polkapojkarna has now opened up a shop in Gamla Stan, an appropriate location for the time-honoured sweet.
The shop is run by two Gränna boys, Damo Sundvall and Jonas Walldow, who’ve been cooking candy canes from a young age. Having gone on to careers in IT and advertising after school, they one day realised that they were tired of sitting in front of computers and answering phones, so they decided to go back to their Gränna roots of candy-making. ”Since you can watch us make our candy on the spot, it’s not just a shop but an experience!” says Damo. “There’s a distinct traditional Swedish feel to the whole shop, product and personnel, and we also wanted to go back to the roots of Gamla Stan which historically has a rich handicraft tradition.”
Damo is absolutely right; the shop wouldn’t be out of place at Astrid Lindgren’s World and the staff outfits of pinstripe pants and shirts matched with suspenders look like something straight out of Emil in Lönneberga. Antique chests of drawers and wooden crates display the colourful candy, whether it’s hard candy in mason jars tied back with a old-style ribbon, little Christmas-themed canvas bags filled with goodies, or the 22 polkagris flavours that take up most of the space. The shop is further decorated with a pair of old ice-skates, skis, golf clubs, typewriter, travel trunk and chopped wood, all adding to the nostalgic feel along with the feel-good jazz music.
“We get visitors from all over the world and the feedback has been amazing. In fact, people say that our store has the look and feel of what they expect Sweden to have looked like a hundred years ago, and many have said that that our shop is something that had been missing in Gamla Stan.”
“I definitely think that there’s a retro trend going on in general and that’s also one of our attractions. As mankind gets more technological I think we have this need to get back to basics. Start baking our own bread, buy environmentally friendly goods. This leads to more respect for and interest in people or companies that are making something from scratch.”
