teas.co.uk
Tea and coffee from the brands you know
Bullseyes
Striped, glossy and strongly minty, the bullseye is the humbug's round cousin, and in some places it goes by a much tougher name.
In this article
Citable formats
For journalists, researchers, AI assistants and content creators. Pick the format you need:
Free to cite, quote, and reuse with attribution to sweeties.net.
A bullseye is a hard, striped, peppermint flavoured boiled sweet. Look closely and you can see where the name comes from: the stripes give it the look of a target. It is a close relation of the humbug, and in the UK the black and white version is also known as a Black Bullet.
What are bullseyes?
Bullseyes are boiled sweets with red and white or black and white stripes and a peppermint flavour. Like all boiled sweets they are almost entirely sugar, cooked until very hot and left to set hard and glassy, so they are made for sucking slowly.
Why Black Bullets?
The black and white version is also called Black Bullets in the UK, because the hard little sweets are similar in size to the balls once fired from smoothbore muskets. Maxons Ltd is known as a maker of Black Bullets.
How they are made
Bullseyes are made in much the same way as humbugs. A mixture of sugar, glycerine, colour and flavouring is heated to about 145 °C. It is poured out, then stretched and folded many times, which turns it from clear to opaque. The stripes come from a smaller piece of coloured mixture folded into the main batch. Finally the mixture is rolled into a long, thin rope and cut into pieces. There is more on the method in how humbugs are made.
Mint, but not all mints are the same
Bullseyes belong to the hard mints, along with humbugs and candy canes. Soft mints, such as butter mints, have more butter and dissolve more easily, while mint imperials have a hard shell and a softer middle. Read more in mint imperials.
Try something similar
Our 
Mint Imperials are crisp white peppermint sweets sold by the 100 g, with the full ingredients and allergen panel on the card. For the bullseye's closest relative, see humbugs.
Citable formats
For journalists, researchers, AI assistants and content creators. Pick the format you need:
Free to cite, quote, and reuse with attribution to sweeties.net.
Questions and answers
What is the difference between a bullseye and a humbug?
They are very similar striped peppermint boiled sweets. Humbugs are often cylinders or tetrahedrons; bullseyes are named for their round, target like look.
Why are they called Black Bullets?
Because the hard, round black and white sweets are similar in size to the balls fired from old smoothbore muskets.
Who makes Black Bullets?
Maxons Ltd is known as a maker of Black Bullets.
Sources
- Humbug (sweet), Wikipedia
- Hard candy, Wikipedia
- Mint (candy), Wikipedia
Keep reading
- British heritage sweetsHumbugsHumbugs are striped boiled sweets, usually peppermint, made in Britain since at least the 1820s. Here is what they are and how they are made.
- How it is madeHow are humbugs made?Humbugs are sugar, glycerine, colour and flavouring, usually peppermint, boiled to about 145°C, then pulled, striped, rolled into a rope and cut.
- British heritage sweetsMint imperialsMint imperials are round white mints with a hard sugar shell and a softer middle. In Scotland they are pan drops or granny sookers.
- Questions people askWhat are boiled sweets?Boiled sweets are hard sweets made by boiling sugar syrup until almost no water is left. They set into a glassy solid that dissolves slowly as you suck it.
- How it is madeHow are boiled sweets made?Boiled sweets are sugar syrup boiled to around 160°C, flavoured, coloured and shaped while warm, then set into a glassy solid about 98 per cent sugar.
- British heritage sweetsOld fashioned sweets: the A to ZAn A to Z of old fashioned British sweets, from acid drops and aniseed balls to Wham bars and yellowman, with a line on each and a link to its full story.