The Violet Candy: C. Howard

One of my favorite TV shows of the aughts was Mad Men. From its profoundly flawed heroes, to its careful capture of the aesthetic of the 60’s and 70’s Manhattan, to its genius writing and carefully plotted (across seasons!) callbacks to characterization, it was a wonderfully-crafted show.

In Season 2, episode 4, Don, our enigmatic lead protagonist, describes a special candy favored by his (abusive, alcoholic) father:

And this candy.
It tasted like violets.
Had a beautiful purple and silver package.

I was curious about this vintage hard candy, and I went about trying to find out where I could try violet-flavored candy. I found it, tried it, and here’s the story.

As it turns out, residents of Gotham will have little trouble finding these mints. The newsstand two blocks from my house has them. The newsstand in front of the 84^th street AMC cinema has them (I ate a whole pack during “Suicide Squad”). I have also found them in bodegas in Greenwich Village and a whole trove of them at the (new-ish) Upper West Side outpost of The Strand bookstore.

The most notable feature of the violet-flavored candy is their smell. When you unwrap the package, you’ll find 15 small tablets, but you’ll also decant the aroma. When I caught the scent, it immediately reminded me of my higher-end shaving creams from George F. Trumper of London.

Flavor-wise, it reminded me of a gin-infusion drink. It has the nose of a fancy bar in San Francisco where someone has infused a premium gin with some sort of thing that you didn’t think gin could (or should) be infused with: bacon, wormwood, chrysanthemum, or ~~cannabis~~ CBD. It turns out that this vaguely medicinal gin hint wasn’t a quality missed in earlier eras: apparently chowards violets were a reliable “cover-up” source for day-drinkers, excuse-makers, and closet alcoholics as the violets flavor masked and melded splendidly with clear alcohols. As a loop-back to the genius writing of Mad Men, the show just told us that Don’s father was an alcoholic without saying it. Brilliant!

C. Howard candies were a candy developed here in Gotham on Broadway by one C(harles). Howard. Apparently he always called the product “choward” and they earned their foothold by his sale of them on the street corners of Manhattan. What “Mad Men” did not hint at is that the line was expanded to include lemon, spearmint, and peppermint. For more history, you can visit the Choward company site. While the company has relocated operations to Long Island, their quirkily antique candy continues to thrive here in the mouth of the Hudson.

As the cover picture shows, I picked up a violets and lemon pack during my last visit to The Strand right next to the Bull Moose dog run. The lemon flavor fits more to what more to what modern folks might consider candy flavor, but the original violets recalls quote-candy flavors that our grandparents knew: black licorice, red licorice, sarsaparilla, egg creme, and phosphates.