Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Fazer Lemon Lakritsi

Name: Lemon Lakritsi
Brand: Fazer
Place Purchased: gift
Price: unknown
Size: 20 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Licorice

One of the best things to come out of doing the candy blog is meeting other folks all over the world and having folks give me candy! Who knew that getting candy from strangers was as easy as spending hundreds of hours documenting your obsession on theinternets ! Last week I got a package from Anne all the way from Sweden. She included some spiced truffle Dala horses, which I promptly ate without photographing, but she also sent some other cool things. The first of which is this lemon licorice:

image

It’s a tube of soft molasses style licorice with a lemon fondant center. Mmmm.

It’s hard to describe how well the flavors go together. They’re both rather woodsy, aromatic flavors. The bite of the molasses (treacle) in the licorice and the intense sweetness and lingering coolness of the licorice goes well with the zesty, mellow essence of the lemon.

I didn’t understand the little face on the package until I opened it and cut the licorice piece in half ... that’s what it looks like. A glossy black licorice piece with the lighter reddish licorice inside and then the lemon cream. Like an emoticon!

I believe they use real licorice with this stuff, so be sure not to overindulge. This licorice comes from Finland (not Sweden, where Anne and her amazing all-food blog are) from a company called Fazer ... which many folks may know from their ubiquitous Fazermint. 

Rating - 8 out of 10

UPDATE: 2/5/2007 - Fazer has announced that it will phase out the use of the caricatured face of a black person on their licorice wrappings.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:36 pm Tracker Pixel for Entry     CandyReviewLicorice Candy8-TastyFinland

Comments
  1. Very stylish looking.  Hmmm…black licorice and lemon. I never would have expected those to go well together.

    Comment by Porgy on 11/30/05 at 2:23 pm #
  2. I think you’re giving the package designers a bit too much credit. It’s apparently acceptable in European packaging to use (to Americans) cringe-inducing pollywog characters to advertise products that are dark or made with coconut. I noticed this traveling in Germany. There was a choco-coconut bar whose mascot was a dark-skinned character with a bone through his nose. Eep.

    Scandinavians seem to really enjoy licorice. Iceland has a lot of chocolate/licorice combo sweets, as well as a hair-raising pocket confection made with licorice, ammonia, and hot pepper. I found them quite addictive.

    Comment by JR on 11/30/05 at 3:36 pm #
  3. Oh I reallly must find some of those—I adore that soft black licorice and I just bet that lemon goes so well with that flavor.

    I am so jealous!

    Comment by xflickerflyx on 11/30/05 at 5:56 pm #
  4. Those are pretty—the candy itself rather than the package—and sound delicious. I’d better get to Sweden soon. Or perhaps the nordic gift shops in my ‘hood will have them… one can hope!

    Comment by Daphne on 11/30/05 at 8:54 pm #
  5. Ooh, glad you liked them! smile Daphne - you better go to Finland to look. I don’t think they’re available in Sweden, actually - at least not in this particular form. I always buy a very big box if I travel - they’re usually available at airports and the ferries to and from Finland. smile

    Comment by Anne on 11/30/05 at 10:23 pm #
  6. I recently found a great online source for licorice. Many of the candies are from The Netherlands where licorice is an obsession.

    CAUTION: The double-salt and triple-salt are—woooooof—salty.

    http://www.dcimports.com/licorice.html

    Comment by desertwind on 12/01/05 at 12:34 am #
  7. Cybele's avatar

    oooh - thanks desertwind! Anne also sent some of the salty stuff too, it’s pretty wild, I try to get that up next week as well.

    JR - you’re probably right about my estimation about the design ... but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions.

    Comment by Cybele on 12/01/05 at 5:59 pm #
  8. Cybele, you also want to look out for the “Salmiak powder”, which is licorice in powder form! Usually very salty. In a little jar with its little spoon. In filled paper straws. Center of sugar shells. Etc.

    What a trip! I lived in Amsterdam in the 80s and still visit there, but that’s one habit I didn’t acquire. I can still remember the horror and disappointment as I bit into what I thought was hard sugar-coated licorice, but—ack!—it was salmiak powder filled.

    The honey-drops are lovely. Also, these anise cubes you dissolve in hot milk. Hmm. I just ordered myself some.

    Comment by desertwind on 12/01/05 at 11:20 pm #
  9. The concept is interesting, and sounds yummy but I don’t think I could bring myself to purchase a product with such offensive and blatantly racist caricature on the wrapper…but that’s just me…

    Comment by ParsleySage on 12/11/05 at 4:51 pm #
  10. I bought some triple-salted licorice a few weeks ago - it was rather a shock to my tongue! I ended up giving the bag to a Dutch friend of mine, who loves them. smile

    Comment by Rachel on 12/15/05 at 5:28 pm #
  11. Rachel - I also got some of that salty licorice from Anna - it’s quite, um, shocking. I haven’t decided how I feel about it, but I’ll probably post in a few days. They’re shaped like little monkeys!

    Comment by cybele on 12/15/05 at 6:33 pm #
  12. Australia also has a few of those “awkward moment” (if you’re American) candy wrappers. Redskins and Chicos come to mind. If you’re curious, you can find both at  
    http://www.aussieproducts.com

    Of course, some Aussies also eat ‘musk sticks,’ which’ll be right up your alley if you’ve ever wanted a candy cigarette that tasted like aftershave.

    Comment by Molly on 1/11/06 at 7:20 pm #
  13. Thank you so much Cybele for your indepth comments on the licorice tube w/ lemon filling and to Desertwind for the source which I will check out.  I’ve searched online a bit and through my brother-in-law who’s a candy distributor in the U.S. before the internet became big - b/c I wanted to find the licorice tubes filled w/ lemon that my grandmother used to give me.  She used to buy them at a “nice” drugstore in Palm Beach, FL in the 70’s and 80’s.
    I appreciate this website and feel hopeful for the first time that these might be them.  I’ll look forward to their arrival in the mail! Now if only I could get Nabisco to restart production of the Ideal Bar cookies!

    Comment by Susan 13 on 6/18/06 at 10:29 am #
  14. I’ve been looking for this Finnish licorice for many years!  I first had it on the ship crossing from northern Germany to Denmark in 1980.  I loved the combination of the lemon with licorice.

    How can I order it?  Please let me know.

    Thanks!

    Comment by Kristi Sackett on 9/15/06 at 9:18 am #
  15. Hi,

    I’ve been looking for this confection for years—the licorice tubes with lemon creme filling.  Where do you get it?  Can you get it on some internet site? And how much is it?

    Pleaaase let me know!  Dying to get this stuff!!

    Thanks,
    BG

    Comment by beth on 12/07/06 at 5:04 pm #
  16. Hi! You can order this lemon licorice and other Finnish licorice as well from this store:

    http://www.suomikauppa.fi/index.php?cPath=23_24_37&sort=2a&language=en&page=1

    Just a note: I would stick to ordering the Fazer brand licorice since that’s the best, I strongly dislike the Brunberg licorice they have available at that store (tastes like rubber, I think).

    Comment by Johanna on 1/15/07 at 11:29 pm #
  17. Actually, a filled liquorice that is better is the vanilla pear flavor by Fazer.  With relatives in Finland, that is the one that is fantastic- complete sugar coma after one- but still good.  smile

    Comment by Bianca on 5/01/08 at 12:26 pm #
  18. Greetings from Finland! Fazer is finnish most popular candy-company<3 Have a taste of this: http://www.karlfazer.com/en.aspx  all finlandias loves that chocolate! <3 and many other produscts from Fazer!

    sorry, my typos : )

    Comment by Miia on 8/09/08 at 4:26 am #
  19. Hi all, I just returned from London where I stumbled upon a Fazer Lemon Lakritsi. It was chewy and sooo surprisingly yummy! (I’m not too helpful with descriptions, but I think Cybele already presented it well) and am thinking.. would enough people be interested in a Fazer Lakritsi Licorice sampler pack if I should put a few together to help defray the shipping (which costs more than the candy!)? I’m thinking of ordering several units of each Fazer Licorice flavor on the website Johanna listed (thanks Johanna!) but the shipping is prohibitive to foot alone. I hope this doesn’t count as advertising on a post- I’m just a candy fan looking for anyone with the same interest to split costs with. The sampler pack would contain one of each (perhaps have 7 or 8 available):

    FAZER ?ss? Licorice (filled with fruit flavour)
    FAZER Lemon Licorice (filled with lemon creme)
    FAZER MOOMIN Licorice (blueberry and raspberry filling)
    FAZER MOOMIN Licorice (pear-vanilla flavoured yoghurt filling)
    FAZER Tyrkisk Peber (pepper flavoured licorice)
    FAZER Licorice (original)
    Perhaps a sample of FAZER Tyrkisk Peber Firewood (licorice salmiac candy with a peppery twist of flavor)

    I’d think $8 per sampler pack + S&H;(Flat rate US domestic Priority Mail preferred) would be what I’d ask.. I know it sounds steep even to me, but given that I paid nearly $3 USD for the one Lemon Lakritsi from the limited stock at the UK candy shop and that this helps me cover expenses at cost (not calculating in whatever 17-35% customs tax I’ll bear if they charge it) it’d help me even out. (If someone knows of a place available to get our hands on these at a more reasonable cost in the US- please share!).

    If there are enough people post expressing interest with the idea this month (and if Cybele is ok with me running with this idea on her site!) I’ll post details..

    Thanks!

    Marg

    Comment by Marg on 1/06/09 at 11:07 am #
  20. Hi candy lovers!

    I am actually looking for the best place in London to locate ‘‘salmiakki’’ candies to send to my girlfriend up in Finland as a surprise.

    Any suggestions?

    Comment by Blakey on 1/24/09 at 9:30 am #
  21. Just a note about the wrapper design:

    The caricature is a design used on Fazer liquorice products for probably as long as they have been made (which is close to a hundred years), and has been kept this long simply for that reason. I don’t think they use it anymore for the reasons others have stated above, but I simply wanted to clarify that it is a really old design, and not some awkwardly ignorant choice made recently smile

    Comment by O. in Finland on 2/17/09 at 6:01 am #
  22. I used to buy boxes of the lemon licorice tubes at a specialty store in Florida, until they went out of business.  I later found some for sale on the ferry between Helsingor and Helsingborg!  back around 1990.  Haven’t seen them since, but I will try some of the online stores mentioned here.

    Thanks!

    Comment by Rob on 12/16/09 at 6:43 am #
  23. If you visit Finland try to find Kouvolan lakritsi(Kouvola licorice). Kouvola is a city in the southeastern Finland). Kouvolan lakritsi has been chosen several times to be the best licorice in Finland. At least the Stockmann department store in the centre of Helsinki sells Kouvolan lakritsi. 
    It was an englishman who created the recipe just for Kouvolan lakritsi company. This licorice is probably the best in the world, I think.

    Visit the web site: http://www.kouvolanlakritsi.fi

    They have information in english.

    Comment by janette on 2/26/11 at 9:52 am #
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