Candy never tasted sweeter now that it’s adorned with well wishes and adorable illustrations. Though presented in a spectrum of colours and unconventional flavours, the real beauty of rock candy lies in its ability to be personalised with customised messages or designs moulded into the candy.
Burst of Flavours
LollyTalk joined the local rock candy industry in January 2013, boasting themselves as Singapore’s third generation of authentic rock candies. The founders, Ma Keow Yuen and Joy Tan, inherited their skills under the 2nd generation of candy makers titled as the “Grand Champion Rock Candy” at the 2009 Royal Melbourne Fine Foods Award.
Candies are no longer just a feast for the taste buds but also for the eyes with their attractive colours and cute designs. A drop of bright yellow tells that it’s banana flavoured, and a striking red coat over the cherry illustration to tell that its flavour.
Apart from the award winning bestseller 200g Fruit Rock Mix (S$10.30) that contains all 19 flavours of the store’s Fruit Series, LollyTalk tries to set themselves apart from the other rock candy makers with their statement of “100% Aussie tradition, 100% Singapore brand”.
With their very own ‘Retro Mix’, customers get to enjoy 4 of Singapore’s popular fizzy drinks – Coca Cola, Ice Cream Soda, Root Beer, and Sarsi in colourful, patterned, bite-sized rock candies.
LollyTalk also keeps things hot with their new series of exotic tasting pillow candies (a pillow shaped, softer version of rock candies) confected from the same award-winning recipe, “Acquired Taste Collection”. Carrying 6 unique flavours: Plum Guava, Chilli Lime, Spicy Mango, Menthol Grape, Menthol Honey Lemon and Honey Lemon, the collection’s a hit with the customers.
With the green Plum Guava erupting into a fruity burst of guava and a delicate touch of sour from bits of real plum, and a combination of tart and spicy encapsulated in a green and red striped Chilli Lime pillow that gives the consumers a little kick, it is no wonder they are the most sought-after flavours.
Patrons are given the option of customising their own messages and designs at the cost of S$270 for a minimum order of 6kg, 200 bottles of 30g each, apart from wide range of candies with embedded generic messages like ‘Thank You’ or ‘Awesome’ sitting on their shelves. It may be tedious, but Ma says “[W]e still do it. We insist on two colours for ‘Thank You’ and three for ‘Happy Birthday’ because customers can choose.”
100% Natural
Sweet Enchantment, locally born rock candy confectionary, may seem like a carbon copy of other rock candy outlets but what sets them apart is their no artificial colorings and flavours candies.
The au natural rock candies made with colour extracts from fruits and vegetables may be deceiving to the naked eye as they look similar to other rock candies but the effects can be seen after consumption.
“All natural rock candy will not stain your tongue,” explains sales manager, Serene Seah, “Not even a black-coloured candy.”
The store offers three other unusual series of rock candies: Floral, Afternoon Tea, and Happy Hour, apart from their largest series, Fruity. Although Fruity is commonly known as the fruit series, it boasts a total of 16 different flavours including the special Japanese Yuzu, a best-selling flavour.
The other series don’t disappoint either, such as the Geranium Rose from Floral, and Latte Macchiato from Afternoon Tea. If you prefer something stronger for your sweet tooth, you can shop from their unconventional series ‘Happy Hour’, which are alcohol-flavoured candies with an alcohol content of less than 5%. We recommend the Champagne and Calvados Apple Brandy.
It can be seen clearly that what distinguishes Sweet Enchantment from other rock candy brands is not only their au natural recipe but also their specially created flavours. The store introduced a new flavour in April, known as Royal Tea. With no real lemon tea flavouring, the candy makers ingeniously blended real lemon and tea extract to form the lemon tea flavoured candy.
Similar to LollyTalk, Sweet Enchantment also offers you the option of adding a personal touch to your rock candies. You can choose between the cheaper alternative of personalising a sticker message on the bottle, or designing your own candy.