Raise your hand if you like boiled sweets.

Raise your hand if you’ve never even heard of boiled sweets.

Raise your hand if you know Simpkins.

The English (and Welsh and Scottish and Irish) call hard candy boiled sweets.

These, perhaps considered “basic,” are what I might call Gramma candy; something you would see uncovered in a candy dish on the side table next to some Life magazines.

I got them from my drummer. Yes, I have a drummer. His name is Mark. He called them hangover drops. I was confused. But intrigued. What he meant were these. But these aren’t the hangover drops. This particular batch is to commemorate the wedding of a yank to a British prince. Which I guess is fine. I honestly couldn’t care less about that.

Without having a crazy deep fluorescent color or sour lemon sugar covering them, you can bet children won’t give these even a side look. But that’s why we don’t have children running companies, or making medical decisions, or driving. Because they’re not smart yet. We’re smart. We know something that may not look like gold, can still be worth a lot of goodness.

I posit that these Simpkins are well worth the suck. The flavors are basic: orange, lemon, strawberry and … white, which is some kinfd of light herb or lime. The flavors come through deeply, and as you suck, they just get better. Hard as nails, it’s best to not bite too early.

When you want a simple sweet, with a strong flavor, that won’t get all over your clothes, and is from jolly ol’ UK, get these. Here.