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This Candy Is Dandy

Southern Living, Mar 2007 by McKinney, Wanda

Get your homemade red hots here, along with delicious handcrafted chocolates, old-fashioned malts and shakes, and a big serving of fun.

It's Willy Wonka without the weirdness. That's my best description of Schimpff's Confectionery. Just across the river from downtown Louisville, Kentucky, this delectable candy store seems almost too good to be true.

A Sweet Spot

"When you live above the store, you can get up in the middle of the night and have a banana split," says Jill Schimpff, smiling broadly. I'd smile too, if I were just upstairs from a thriving 115-yearold candy shop and soda fountain.

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Jill and husband Warren have the enviable job of continuing their family's company, begun in the late 1800s. "This is one of the oldest family-owned confectioneries in the same location in the whole country," says Warren, of the Jeffersonville, Indiana, business.

The company's claim to fame revolves around the cinnamon-flavored hard candy known as red hots. "We make them ourselves," says Warren, who frequently demonstrates this yummy art for visitors. "We pour a little cinnamon oil into the candy while it's still hot on the table and mix it in." Warren then runs the hardening candy through a machine that turns it into ruby-red drops ready to pack in cans or jars ($6.25 per pound). They also make lemon drops, anise and clove drops, flavors offish-shaped candy, and horehound drops in hard candy form, along with a large selection of chocolates.

Peruse Before You Choose

If you can't decide which candies to buy, plop down in a booth, and order some lunch. Try the Benedictine sandwich ($2.75), a regional favorite consisting of cream cheese and cucumber, and accompany that with a chocolate soda ($2) or malt ($3)."If you come in here on your birthday, you get a free sundae," says Warren.

Delicious Memories

"We make our popular turtle-shaped chocolates by hand," says Warren. They also cook up cream-filled peanut clusters and English toffee.

Still can't decide between the toffee or chocolate-covered caramels? Wander back to where Warren makes the red hots, and watch the whole process. Or take a left into the candy museum. "The museum came about when I was collecting tins," says Jill. Now it's full of collectible tins, a display showcasing the family's history, antique candy-making equipment, and such novelties as a kerosene popcorn popper.

Make your final selections, and take note of the bright red shirts and bright smiles of the folks who live and work at Schimpff's. You'd smile too, if this sweet retreat belonged to you.

-WANDA MCKINNEY

This Candy Is Dandy

Southern Living, Mar 2007 by McKinney, Wanda

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