Mmmmm…salty licorice. Dubbel Zout FTW.
Definitely an acquired taste.
Both companies and products are well-known and established. Salta Katten is an old classic that’s been around since before I was born. Not many that I know eat it because it sticks between your teeth like a bastard. Salmiak Pastilles are classified as throat pastilles here, same with Giants Salmiak. I’m not too fond of them, the salmiak taste is too chemical - no nuance.
If your supplier can find them, I recommend:
Tyrkisk Peber (Fazer) - strong powder filled candies that cut up your mouth in no time, but you can’t stop eating them.
Djungelvrål (Malaco) - sort of like Salta Katten, but covered in salmiak crystals.
Jätte Salt (Konfekta) - small sweet licorice candies covered with a thin layer of salmiak powder.
Kryptoniter (Konfekta) - sour candies filled with salmiak powder.
Salt & Blandat (Malaco) - mix of sweet and salt licorice.
ETA: Erm. With “salmiak” I mean “sal ammoniac”.
Well, I got the stuff last week. It’s pretty good. Nowhere near as awful tasting as I was expecting, and the licorice taste is not as strong as I was expecting. The Salta Katten leave me with a feeling of chlorine in my nose, like I had just gone swimming in a pool and accidentally got some water up my nostrils.
The pastilles are a bit more licorice-y to my tastes and the saltiness much more pronounced, but I don’t get the chlorine-in-the-nose feeling from them.
Y’know, I have the same North & Baltic Sea cred as most of you (except Mr Dibble–I know what horrible things the Boers did to your people, but salty licorice is inhumane 
), and I know enough to pass the salty licorice to my Polak wife without the slightest temptation to try it. I mean, “Sal Ammoniac” is a character in a hardboiled detective story, not food.
I learned years ago (20+) that black licorise goes really well with beer. Only a few years ago did I “discover” salty licorise and in one man’s opinion, it is even better with beer.
Salt and beer are a natural. Especially if it’s sweet and salty, which explains Beer Nuts.
Jesus Christ, I sounds like I should just order it direct from Sigma-Aldrich
Oddly enough, it’s not a huge thing here with the Afrikaners - it’s only become readily available in stores recently, I suspect because of a burgeoning post-apartheid European expat community.
Me, I acquired the taste from some Finns. The SCA, it’s responsible for more of my vices than I care to admit.
An old boss of mine used to love this stuff, and he enjoyed offering unsuspecting new employees some “dutch licorice” and watching their faces as they tried it.
One tay he was tormenting a new guy when an ex-army guy from another departmnt happened by. He asked what was up, and was offered some, which he chewed and swallowed. The calm way he said “Never offer that to me again” had us all in stitches.
For the record, I can definitely resist it. I prefer sweet licorice.
Origin: Many centuries ago some Finn was salting fish for the winter, spilled it on his stash of licorice, decided he didn’t want to toss it out since he’d paid the whole ancient Finnish equivalent of a penny for it, started eating it, got used to it then made a batch on purpose because the regular stuff didn’t take right anymore.
Do they use ammonium chloride to salt fish in Finland?
Well, as luck would have it, I have here a copy of said Salmiakki, a 2001 book by Jukka Annala, a Finnish journalist and researcher who is, among other things, the chairman of the Finnish Salmiakki Society. Let me paraphrase some salmiakki knowledge for you!
The candy known as salmiakki is licorice flavored with ammonium chloride (NH4Cl). According to Annala, salmiakki could easily be called the national candy of Finland. In Finland, the medicinal use of salmiakki has a long tradition; it has been used as cough medicine, as an expectorant, as it makes phlegm more runny and more easily coughed out while simultaneously making the mixture taste better (to a Finn, obviously, others might disagree). Annala speculates that the reason salmiakki candy is so deeply-ingrained into Finnish culture is the sale of it in pharmacies. They used to prepare this cough medicine mixture in pharmacies, but they also sold (and still sell) it in small diamond-shaped flat candy form. This “Apteekin salmiakki” is still “the real salmiakki” to some people. Pharmacies also prepared salmiakki powder, but the sale of this in pharmacies was discontinued in the 1980’s because of health reasons; people would pour it out of the bag onto their hands and lick it off from there, which tends to not be the most hygienic of ways to ingest one’s medicine. In the Netherlands and in other Nordic countries, salmiakki has the same pharmaceutical background.
The commercial manufacture of salmiakki was started in candy factories. No-one knows quite who got the idea, but in Finland, candy manufacturers started making licorice in the 1920s and salmiakki in the 1930s. During the war years, candy manufacturing was quite limited for understandable reasons, but in the 1950s things picked up again when sugar rationing was stopped, and people became interested in the commercial possibilities of salmiakki candy.
So, that’s what Mr. Annala has to say. As to why on earth we like it, it has actually been researched that Finns who were children during the war years, when salmiakki candy was not available, tend to dislike the flavor of salmiakki. This gives credence to the view that Finns simply like salmiakki because we’ve grown up with it and have eaten it since we were kids. Why we like the taste of something medicinal, who knows. Finns are strange anyway.
An interesting thing to note is that in Finland, salmiakki goes far beyond just the black candy (which is actually naturally white, then you add charcoal). We have salmiakki-filled chocolate (which I was a bit wary about when it came onto the market a few years ago, but turned out to be quite tasty), salmiakki-flavored soft drinks (these, on the other hand, tasted awful, proving that even with salmiakki, there are limits) and even salmiakki-marinated pork chops intended for barbecuing.
One of the most famous salmiakki products is Salmiakki Koskenkorva, which is basically the idea of “salmiakki + Finnish vodka = CANNOT FAIL”. It came onto the market on January 1st, 1993, and quickly became very popular, especially with young people, since the taste of salmiakki covered the taste of the 38% alcohol. It was also cheaper than regular Koskenkorva, since it was classified as a liquor. Hence the popularity skyrocketed and you started getting all these “won’t someone think of the children”-type of letters to the editor. The whole thing eventually escalated into an official discussion in Finnish Parliament, followed by a discussion between the minister in charge of alcohol affairs and the directors of Alko, the government-controlled monopoly holder for alcohol sales in Finland. Salmiakki Koskenkorva was taken off the market in March 1993, but the public outcry was so great that they brought it back in a less-potent and more expensive form. We like our booze, and we like our salmiakki.
As to fish, I do believe we use regular salt when we salt our fish… at least the gravlax. And as to the different types of candy, the Tyrkisk Peber (turkinpippuri) is definitely my favorite, along with Salmiakkimerkkari, which are pirate coins. 
Cool! Thanks, auRa!