17 Candy Bars That Have Been Around A Lot Longer Than You Realize

Chocolate and sugar have been sweet indulgences consumed in many forms by humans for thousands of years. It wasn't until the 16th century that chocolate made its way to Europe, and two centuries later, the Swiss and British started to form them into more portable bar forms. Once the public showed a large appetite for these innovative rectangular, sometimes rounded or mounded, confections, it seemed everyone wanted to perfect their own version of it, including those in North America.

The very first candy bar is believed to date back 1847, and the oldest one still on shelves today hails from 1866. Many bars have come and gone since, but some of these classic confections have proven their worth, passing the test of time and beloved by one generation after another. A few of these bars even found themselves in the battlefronts of the World Wars and remained popular back home during peacetime. Daily Meal has peeled back the wrappers of 17 such bars that have been around a lot longer than you might realize. We'll be taking a look at their humble beginnings, how they got their names, and how they endure to this day. This will be one of the sweetest history lessons you'll ever snack on. Enjoy.

Milton Hershey first found sweet success with his Lancaster Caramel Company, but in 1893, he remarked to employee Frank Snavely, "Caramels are a fad; Chocolate is permanent. I am going to make chocolate" (via Hershey Community Archives). Hershey was captivated by chocolate-making machinery he had seen at that year's World's Columbian Exposition and began to experiment with one using fresh milk in its production. While a vanilla sweet chocolate bar was one of Hershey's first, in 1900, the milk chocolate namesake bar we all know and love was introduced.

The Hershey bar initially sold for 5 cents, a price that would amazingly remain the same until 1969, when it was bumped up to 10 cents. (The bar itself was made larger as well.) In 1908, a version with almonds was introduced. The famous all-caps "HERSHEY'S" lettering first adorned wrappers in 1912, and in a candy industry first, nutritional labeling was featured on the reverse side in 1973.

The Hershey bar's popularity has naturally spilled over into popular culture, borrowed for the name of a jazzy Stan Getz tune, mentioned in songs by George and Ira Gershwin, Jefferson Airplane, and Sonny & Cher, and deeply desired by both Ben Stiller and Christian Bale in Steven Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun." One of Don Draper's finest pitches on "Mad Men" remains his for Hershey, as he called it "the childhood symbol of love." Draper believes in the brand so much he tells company execs, "If I had my way, you would never advertise."

The Swiss Tobler family got into the candy business by selling others' products starting in 1868, and 31 years later, they opened their own chocolate factory. After Emil Baumann discovered the magic of a white nougat while in France, he and his cousin, company owner Theodor Tobler, came up with an Alps mountain range-shaped chocolate bar in 1908. It went by the name Toblerone, borrowing the family name and the Italian word for the honey and almond nougat ingredients found within, "torrone."

Toblerone's famous triangular packaging once featured an eagle, which was later replaced by a Bernese bear joined with an image of the Matterhorn mountain. The bars are a common sight at duty-free airport shops around the world and have made appearances in the "James Bond" film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," "Clear and Present Danger," "Friends," and "The Week Of," where Steve Buscemi is overwhelmed by a gigantic one.

While Toblerone remains a popular bar in the 21st century, it doesn't exactly hit the same physical heights it once did. In 2016, in a move to save costs, the bar lost 10% of its size, prompting British consumer Tony Matthews to tell the Associated Press, "The shape of the bar may have looked like the Swiss Alps before, now it's a bit more Holland." After moving part of the candy's production to Bratislava, Slovakia, in 2023, it was stripped of its "Swissness" label and had to remove the Matterhorn and Swiss flag from its packaging.

While the Roca bar may be Tacoma, Washington, confectioners Brown & Haley's claim to candy fame, its introduction was preceded by another favorite on its roster — Mountain Bars. The mound of rich chocolate filled with ground peanuts and vanilla fondant was first marketed in 1915 as the Mount Tacoma bar, in honor of the nearby mountain now known as Mount Rainier. It became a favorite of the soldiers stationed nearby at Camp Lewis, who would later be longing for them while fighting overseas in World War I. In an advertisement from 1919, Brown & Haley stated it once received a letter from one such soldier who claimed that "he is going to eat so many Mt Tacoma Bars when he gets back that he'll bust" (via The News Tribune).

By 1923, the bar was being sold by its current name, and the cherry flavor was added that decade. It would take almost five decades more for another flavor to be added, when peanut butter-filled Mountain Bars came about in 1972. Past limited-run flavors have included raspberry, coconut, cappuccino, and mint. The treats are still made in the very same factory where they first rolled off and are popular in neighboring states like Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and California. While the bars are no longer handmade, Kathi Rennaker of Brown & Haley told MyNorthwest in 2020, "We currently produce 100,000 Mountain Bars in an eight-hour shift," adding, "We make about four million pounds of Mountain Bars per year."

While it isn't the first combination candy bar in America, many do bestow that title on the Clark Bar. The milk chocolate-coated bar with a peanut butter crunchy center was created in 1917 for the war effort by David L. Clark, an Irish immigrant who began selling candy out of a wagon three decades earlier. After World War I ended, the bar's popularity grew, and in World War II, three quarters of the bars produced were sent to soldiers serving overseas. While Clark himself passed away in 1939, his name lives on in this precursor to the Butterfinger.

By 1960, the Clark Bar had gained a mascot boy named Clarkie and, over the years, has received free advertising straight from the lips of beloved sitcom characters on shows like "Seinfeld," "NewsRadio," "Uncoupled," "The Simpsons," and "Friends," as well as witty banter from "You've Got Mail." In 1981, the D.L. Clark Company pieced together 32,000 Clark Bars into a 3,000-pound singular one in an attempt to set the Guinness World Record for the world's largest candy bar.

Soon after, the Clark Bar endured a series of different owners, including Leaf Inc. and the New England Confectionery Co. When the latter went bankrupt, the Boyer Candy Company acquired the Clark Bar in 2018 and brought its production back to Pennsylvania. Boyer CEO Anthony Forgione told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "We did a ton of interviews with people who worked at the factory in Pittsburgh to get it exactly how the Clark Bar was made."

Peter Paul Halajian went from selling homemade candy out of a basket to opening two Connecticut ice cream and candy shops and, with the help and investment of some fellow Armenian immigrants, found sweet success as a wholesaler of treats. In 1920, the Peter Paul Manufacturing Company introduced the Mounds bar, featuring coconut richly dipped in chocolate, which would later be hailed in ads as "indescribably delicious." Halajian died seven years later, but Mounds kept climbing to new heights. In the 1930s, the company gave buyers their nickel's worth by including two bars within one package of Mounds, and it billed itself as the world's largest user of coconut in the '40s.

While today, the Almond Joy bar seems like it's been a nutty alternative partner to Mounds forever, it actually didn't come around until 1946. The two candies are often advertised together, and Almond Joy's iconic slogan, "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't," with lyrics by Leo Corday and music by Leon Carr, perfectly sums up each candy's toothsome appeal. The earworm jingle was such a part of late 20th century Americana that even "Weird Al" Yankovic covered it in concert. Mounds has also been seen in scenes from "Back to The Future," "Scarface," and "The Goldbergs." In 1978, Peter Paul Incorporated merged with Cadbury Schweppes, and a decade later, Hershey took over its U.S. confections, which included Mounds, Almond Joy, and York Peppermint Patties.

The exact origin of the Oh Henry! bar's name has been up for debate since its inception in 1920. Theories have included an homage to the writer O. Henry, or even a nod to a Kansas candy maker who may have originally created the confection of peanuts, caramel, and fudge decked out in milk chocolate. The main one that has long been promoted by the brand is that the girls who worked at founder George H. Williamson's candy shop took a liking to a young customer with that name and asked him to do favors for them by calling, "Oh Henry..."

While most candy bars at the time sold for 5 cents, Oh Henry! was sold at a more premium price of 10 cents. It was even suggested in ads during the 1920s to slice the bar into pieces and serve to guests. That culinary practice was later lampooned on "Seinfeld," and the bar was also praised in a different episode. Other companies wanted to copy Williamson's success but hit a litigious wall when bars like Oh Honey and Oh Jonnie proved to be way too similar. Oh Henry! even once had a "little sister" bar named Oh Mabel!

Oh Henry! exchanged hands from Nestle to Ferrero in 2018, alongside buddies Baby Ruth and Butterfinger, but was unceremoniously discontinued soon after. Hershey makes a different bar under the name Oh Henry! in Canada, and in America, Ferrero has occasionally brought back Oh Henry! for limited-time runs.

The Kandy Kake chocolate bar had been on the Curtiss Candy Company's roster for over 20 years before it was renamed Baby Ruth in 1921. That just so happened to coincide with the rising career of New York Yankee slugger Babe Ruth. Years later, when asked if it was named after him, Ruth said, "That's the only one I never got a dime out of," adding, "I tried but they swore they named their candy after Grover Cleveland's niece. They said her name was Ruth and everybody called her Baby Ruth" (via The Gazette). The company has stuck to the story that the bar is named after Ruth Cleveland, who was actually Cleveland's daughter, although she died in 1904.

To help ensure that things really took off for the bar, which sports peanuts, caramel, and nougat housed in a chocolate coating, Curtiss' president, Otto Schnering, came up with the idea to drop them over cities from planes. The bar's rapid success even led Schnering to expand the use of the Baby Ruth name to a peppermint gum product, as well as his own racing hydroplane.

Baby Ruth has been shouted out on the TV show "Taxi" and had memorable nods in the movies "The Goonies" and "The Sandlot" and in a song by John Prine. While Babe Ruth probably wasn't a fan of the bar, in 2023, the Yankees partnered with current owners Ferrero to bring the candy and a limited-edition Baby Ruth Milkshake to Yankee Stadium concession stands

Actor-turned-candy man Donley Cross and his partner Charlie Fox and their Fox Cross Company were all about nougat-filled, chewy-named candies. In 1920, they launched the chocolate chewing nougat Nu Chu bar, and two years later, seizing upon the Charleston dance craze of the Jazz Age, used the South Carolinian city's good name for a new chocolate-covered vanilla nougat candy bar. The Charleston Chew bar, which for a long while included an exclamation point at the end of its name, was originally manufactured in the bay area of California and has also called Chicago and the Boston area home.

When Nathan Sloane took over Fox Cross Company in 1957, the Charleston Chew brand expanded in both flavors and ways to enjoy. By the 1960s, the boxes that contained them encouraged eaters to "freeze them too and crack 'em up," and in the following decade, the standard vanilla flavor was joined by chocolate, strawberry, grape, cherry, and even banana options.

The candy brand exchanged hands to Nabisco, then Warner-Lambert, before moving, along with Junior Mints, Sugar Daddy, and Sugar Babies, to Tootsie Roll Industries in 1993. Five years later, Tootsie did fans an amazing service by creating Charleston Mini Chews, which is one of the more common forms the candy is enjoyed in to this day. Charleston Chew, of which approximately 65 miles are produced daily, has been name-dropped by Richard Nixon on "Futurama" and rapped about by Eminem.