This Retro Candy Was Made For Root Beer Fans

Few things are as uniquely American as root beer. The retro soda flavor that the rest of the world can't quite understand is loved by Americans, and it's often associated with childhood nostalgia. One of the more literal ways to bottle that nostalgia is with Dad's Root Beer Barrels, the barrel-shaped hard candy made to taste like the spicy-sweet retro soda.

These tiny barrels borrow the "you love it or hate it" flavor as well as the name from the iconic Dad's Old-Fashioned Root Beer soda. Founded in Illinois in the 1930s, when Dad's pop entered the market, root beer was already a familiar flavor. By the time Dad's pop was established and beloved, especially among fathers, Washburn Candy — a Brockton, Massachusetts-based bakery-turned-hard-candy company — took the soda and turned it into a hard candy that would stay with you longer than its liquid counterpart. The barrels taste like someone accidentally spilled Dad's root beer into a pan and left it to harden. They feature a mix of sweet and spicy notes and hints of sassafras, vanilla, wintergreen, and star anise.

Root beer was initially consumed as a medicinal tonic, made from sassafras root extract for treating fever, rheumatism, and colds. It was served hot until the 1850s, when people started mixing root beer syrup with soda water for a cold, carbonated drink. In 1960, the FDA banned sassafras oil and root bark containing safrole from use in food after studies found that safrole caused cancer in rats. After the ban, different brands used different combinations of roots, barks, and spices, including dandelion, birch, and sarsaparilla, to imitate the distinctive sassafras flavor.

Today, the sentiment around the barrels is as long-standing and bittersweet as the retro candy's flavor. People on Reddit fondly reminisce about the candy, with one user dubbing the barrels "grandma's purse church candy," while another says they can still taste them just from memory. But not all the memories are so sweet. The candy was also notorious for being harsh on the tongue, and many people still remember getting cuts and slices from the hard, sometimes jagged candy. Nostalgic sweet tooths willing to forgive the candy's violent side can still find it at many places, including Walmart, Cracker Barrel, drugstores, dollar stores, and specialty candy shops, as well as online.