Lollipops

Candy on a stick may have been around long before George Smith named his creation “Lolly Pop” after his favorite race horse in 1908. The name stuck and the world now affectionately calls any hard candy on a stick a lollipop.

Early man is thought to have enjoyed a similar treat by using sticks to collect honey from bee hives. Later, ancient Chinese, Arabs, and Egyptians were known to have candied fruits and nuts in honey to preserve them. Archaeologists believe that due to the stickiness of the honey, sticks were used to make these treats easier to eat.

Boiled sugar candy became popular in the Middle Ages but remained the treat of the well-to-do because sugar was scarce. Eventually, as sugar became more plentiful, these treats became more accessible to the people. Many believe sticks were inserted into hard candy to make enjoyment of these treats easy. Linguists think that perhaps the term lollipop could have come from London during the times of Charles Dickens.

It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution that hard candy took off. Automation combined with the introduction of sugar beet juice launched the mass production of candies. One story has it that the owner of the McAviney Candy Company stirred his hard candy mixture with a stick. As a treat for his children, each night he’d bring home the sticks that were covered with the hard candy. He eventually marketed these sticks as “used candy sticks”.

In 1908, George Smith placed candy on a stick and named it “Lolly Pop” after his favorite race horse. That same year, the first machine built for producing lollipops was invented by the Racine Confectionary Machine Company. This machine was capable of creating 2400 lollipops per hour.

Ever hear of a born sucker? Samuel Born went on to further automation of lollipops by creating the Born Sucker machine in 1916. This machine automatically inserted the stick into the candy and a new sucker was born! Samuel Born also went on to invent sprinkles. These bits of candy are actually remnants from the lollipop making process.

Today, the term lollipop is a generic term used to describe candy on a stick. Whether you like huge, round lollipops, Tootsie Pops, Blow Pops, Unicorn Pops, or the smaller Dum-Dums, you’ll find hundreds of choices from Sugar Stand in a huge variety of flavors. We have pops for all occasions in fun, festive shapes.

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