Yesterday afternoon I found myself in the area of Fairfield, Ohio, visiting a lovely antique mall. As I was just about out of HP Sauce, I decided to venture over to Jungle Jim’s International Market–a Cincinnati institution that isn’t so much a grocery store as it is a Destination. It’s a dangerous place to go if you’re culinarily adventurous, or even curious, and so along with my HP Sauce I wound up with a proper British pork pie to eat while watching the football, some jelly babies to go with Doctor Who, and a small bag of salmiakki, or salty licorice.
I was first introduced to this when I briefly visited Finland on my way back from Russia a few years back; Tyrkisk Peber was the brand, and still remains my favorite. Salmiakki is a bit of an odd beast–black licorice w/ ammonium chloride to make it salty. You either get it or you don’t–it is not a confection which lends itself to lukewarm feelings. I don’t personally want to be having it all the time, but it’s a nice little treat now and then.
So, this thread is for the love (or hate) of salmiakki. Anyone got any favorite brands? Ever had the salmiakki infused vodka that’s popular in Finland (at times, I think all of Finnish drinking culture boils down to crushing hard candy and putting it in vodka)?
I used to work with a friend of mine who’s of Dutch descent (he’s from Florida, but his father was Dutch), and he LOVED him some salty licorice. One day, he offered me some, and at first I thought “How nasty!”, but then it grew on me. He’d got it from a relative who’d visited recently.
It’s kind of inexplicable- kind of like acquiring a taste for beer, I suppose. Anyway, I told him that World Market and a couple of local European deli/restaurant places carried it, and for the rest of the time I worked with him, we snacked on the stuff like fiends.
Haven’t had it in about 5-6 years since I stopped working there, but I imagine I’d still like it.
I personally find the flavor of licorice to be vile and gag-inducing, so I would never touch this stuff. Years ago, we had a salesman who brought some of it back to our office, and we left it out in a bowl as a combination treat/prank. Since essentially zero people in the US have ever had it, and the expectation is that candy is going to be sweet, the reactions that resulted when someone tried it were exquisite!
I love this stuff. They used to have it at IKEA, but I haven’t seen it there in ages. The only place I find it now is Cost World Plus Market (or whatever it’s called).
Can’t stand the stuff. Finns have always loved the candy, and I was in Finland when the craze for crushing it and putting it into you bottle of Koskenkorvaa began. What a waste of vodka, as far as I’m concerned.
Jungle Jim’s rocks, I need to get back there soon.
Salmiakk, however, is a vile atrocity against man, and those who do in fact spring it on the unsuspecting deserve nothing less than being denied the use of the hand that offended via 15 or 20 good whacks with a rock hammer.
I loves me some drop! Our local Piggly Wiggly carries a few varieties, but for the best selection, I have to order it online. Dubbel Zoute is an acquired taste, but once you’ve acquired it, it must be satisfied!
And I love the salmiak rondos!!
(Pro tip: Do not use zinc lozenges along with salty licorice. The ammonium chloride reacts with the zinc to form diammonium tetrachlorozincate, commonly known as flux, and used for galvanization.)
I’d never heard of the stuff until I recently read a novel by a Danish author in which it was mentioned. Now that I know of its existence, I really think I need to try it. I’ll have to hie myself over to the Cost Plus World Market and look for it.
I’ve had anise seed in some savory applications and liked it. And I also like black licorice. So this just might work for me.
Salmiakki enhances most any situation or experience with it’s powerful, rooty bite! It’s like True Metal for your tongue. Tyrkisk Peber is the gold standard against which other hard salmiakki is rated. TB is simply the best, but some other similar ones (hard exterior with delicious salmiakki powder inside) are nearly as good, others markedly inferior. Soft salmiakki is a different beast altogether, but there are gems there, too. Again, Tyrkisk Peber Firewood is among the very best. Just last night I finished a 6 oz. bag of hard TB in one go. It’s almost a drug with large enough a dose: I can feel my blood pressure soar and the skin of my mouth peel, ahhhhh
I discovered the existence of salty licorice a couple of years ago. There’s a shop in my city in the UK which specialises in strange / foreign kinds of sweets (including a lot from the US, unfamiliar in Britain). They were selling there, salty licorice – from the Netherlands, I believe: as mentioned upthread, one of the countries where this stuff obtains. As a bit of fun and silliness for Christmas, I bought some for myself and my brother – we are both very fond of ordinary licorice. I and my brother, and my niece, were unanimous in finding salty licorice one of the vilest eatables we had ever tried. I can kind-of imagine it being an acquirable taste; but feel that it would take a great deal of acquiring, and am not inclined toward the task of trying to do so !
I prefer Dutch dubbelzout to Finnish salmiakki, but I like both. Venco and Katjes brands seem to be the easiest Dutch-style licorice to find here - dubbelzout, and also my favourite sweet licorice, schoolkrijt
I used to eat bag after bag of heksehyl, a soft variant, when I was a kid. Basically small logs of salmiakk, wrapped in sweet black licorice powdered in sugar. I also ate a lot of hockey powder, the powder from tyrkisk pepper sold in a puck-shaped box. I think one of the weirdest variants I ate was nail-shaped hard salmiakk-candies called rustne spiker, wich translates to rusty nails.
