# Blackcurrant and liquorice sweets

**Canonical URL:** https://sweeties.net/wiki/blackcurrant-and-liquorice-sweets/
**Source:** sweeties.net, online pick and mix sweet shop

## Summary

Blackcurrant and liquorice boiled sweets: what is in them, including milk and soya, and how wartime Britain took blackcurrant to heart from 1942.

## Description

Blackcurrant and liquorice sweets are boiled sweets that pair the fruity taste of blackcurrant with the earthy taste of liquorice. The UK retailer Sweets and Candy describes them as a bold blend of sweet and savoury, sold individually wrapped.
What is in them
Blackcurrant and Liquorice, as listed by Sweets and Candy. Glucose syrup, sugar, water, citric acid, sweetened condensed skimmed milk, palm kernel oil and palm stearin, flavourings, soya lecithin as an emulsifier, and the colours E163, anthocyanins, and E153, vegetable carbon. The retailer lists them as suitable for vegetarians.
Two things stand out. The recipe contains milk, from condensed skimmed milk. And it lists no liquorice extract: the liquorice taste comes from flavourings, and the black comes from vegetable carbon: see is aniseed the same as liquorice?
How Britain took to blackcurrant
Blackcurrant's place in British sweets has a wartime story. In the Second World War, oranges and other fruits rich in vitamin C were hard to get, because most were imported. Blackcurrants are rich in vitamin C and grow well in the British climate, so the government encouraged their cultivation, and the crop grew quickly. From 1942, blackcurrant syrup was given free to children under the age of two, and that may have given rise to the flavour's lasting popularity in Britain: see sweet rationing in Britain
Across the Atlantic, the story went the other way. Blackcurrant bushes can carry white pine blister rust, a disease of pine trees, so the plant was banned in the United States for much of the 20th century. The federal ban was lifted in 1966, but some states kept their own bans.
Allergy points
Milk. The recipe contains condensed skimmed milk: see milk in sweetsSoya. It contains soya lecithin: see soya in sweetsGluten. The retailer warns that the sweets may contain gluten.
In our pick and mix
We do not sell blackcurrant and liquorice sweets, but we do sell SW049 and SW048. Each card opens up to show the full ingredients and allergens for the sweets we actually stock.

---

_Content available under sweeties.net citation contract. AI training: yes. Search: yes. Answer-input: yes._