Yay, Junior Mints!

I haven’t had a Charleston Chew in decades, and was surprised they’re still made.

Ditto for Sugar Babies. Sugar Babies are, of course, much better than a Sugar Daddy, but both go hard fast and are capable of ripping your fillings straight out of your molars. Such an old school candy.

But they are both made nearby, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

As are Junior Mints.

Now there is a candy I still enjoy on occasion. I don’t know if they’re still sold in the old candy-bar equivalent sized box, but I love when they appear in my sister’s Halloween assortment bags. I still prefer a Butterfinger, but I don’t mind raiding her supply for a tiny little Junior Mints boxeen.

Like Charleston Chew and Sugar Babies, Junior Mints are pretty old fashioned. And unlike their fraternal twin – the Pom Pom (something of a coated Sugar Baby) – they haven’t gone extinct.

In fact – can this be right? is it really a fact-fact – 14 million Junior Mints are produced every day.

No wonder that area in Cambridge smells so sweet. Of course, it used to smell even better, back in the day when the Necco factory was pumping out candies whose best use was Communion hosts when playing Mass. And when Candy Cupboard chocolates were made in Cambridge. As were Squirrel Nuts. (And no one but no one ever called them a Squirrel Nut Zipper, by the way.)

Junior Mints are still manufactured in the same building where they were first made in 1949. (What a great year that was.) Junior Mints is now owned by Tootsie Roll, but it was originally a product of the Welch Candy Company, founded by the Welch Brothers. (One of the Welch Bros went on to found the John Birch Society. And, unfortunately, having googled the ignominious Robert Welch, I learned that we share a birthday. Sigh.)

The good news for Cambridge, which is now home to a lot more biotech firms than it is candy companies, is that Tootsie Roll is planning a small factory expansion.

Representatives of a Tootsie Roll subsidiary will go before the Cambridge Planning Board next month with a proposal to add 10,000 square feet to the company’s 146,000-square-foot plant on a quiet stretch of Main Street between Kendall and Central squares. In documents filed with the city, Cambridge Brands Inc., said it needs the room to upgrade aging electrical equipment, a sign that it plans to keep the plant — and apprutoximately 200 jobs — in Cambridge for some time to come. (Source: Boston Globe)

Glad they’re staying in Cambridge, and that those 200 working-class jobs will be preserved in an environment now dominated by brainiac work. (The area where the candy factory sits is pretty much surrounded by MIT.)

So thanks, Tootsie Roll for keeping Cambridge sweet.

But Tootsie Roll? Now there’s another candy I tend to avoid. The mini-versions are okay if their completely fresh, but the big suckers? Yikes. They look too much like dog turds.

That said, I don’t mind an occasional Tootsie Pop. A nice satisfying crunch when you chomp down on the colored glass-like candy shell surrounding the Tootsie stuff in the middle.

Junior Mints aside, Tootsie does seem to specialize in candies that pull your fillings out by the roots. In addition to Sugar Babies, Sugar Daddy, and Charleston Chew, they make Dots, Crows (nee Black Crows), and Candy Apple Pops. Maybe they’re in cahoots with the American Dental Associate.

Such throwback brands, and ones that, because they’re old timers, I suspect appeal more to old geezers than younger folks. And old geezers can ill afford to eat candies that destroy their fragile teeth and ancient dental work.

But yay for Junior Mints. Soft enough for the most fragile of geezer mouths, bite-sized, delicious and made for the foreseeable future right next door in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Sweet!