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Cough candy
Cough candy has a name that sounds like medicine and a flavour to match, but it is a boiled sweet. Here is what goes into it, where the idea of sweets for the throat comes from, and how it differs from the lozenges sold in chemists.
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Cough candy is a traditional boiled sweet with a herbal, slightly medicinal flavour, sold in individually wrapped twists. Despite the name, it is a sweet, not a medicine.
What is in it
Cough Candy, as listed by Sweets and Candy. Sugar, glucose syrup, water, flavouring, and beetroot red, E162, as a colour. The retailer describes the twists as boiled sweets with a herbal flavour, and lists them as suitable for vegetarians.
It is made like other boiled sweets, by boiling sugar and glucose syrup until almost no water is left: see how are boiled sweets made?
Sweets for the throat
The idea of a sweet to soothe the throat is very old. Sweets for the throat are thought to date back to about 1000 BC, in Egypt's Twentieth Dynasty, when they were made from honey flavoured with citrus, herbs and spices. The shape gave medicated sweets their name: a lozenge is a diamond, the original shape of cough tablets.
Britain has several sweets with that medicinal flavour. Army and Navy sweets are black liquorice and herb lozenges, often eaten in winter, and Coltsfoot Rock is flavoured with a wild plant once used for coughs: see Army and Navy sweets, Coltsfoot Rock and Victory V lozenges
Sweet or medicine?
The difference is what is inside. The cough candy recipe here contains only sugar, syrup, water, flavouring and a colour. Medicated throat lozenges contain active ingredients: some contain menthol, peppermint oil or spearmint, and others contain mild antiseptics or anaesthetics. If you need something for a sore throat, a cough candy is a sweet, not a treatment.
Safety
Cough candy is a hard boiled sweet. The NHS says not to give young children hard foods such as boiled sweets, because of the risk of choking: see hard sweets and young children
In our pick and mix
We do not sell cough candy, but we do sell other traditional boiled sweets, such as 
Pear Drops and 
Sherbet Lemons. Each card opens up to show the full ingredients and allergens for the sweets we actually stock.
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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
Is cough candy a medicine?
No. The recipe here lists only sugar, glucose syrup, water, flavouring and a colour. Medicated throat lozenges, by contrast, contain active ingredients such as menthol or mild antiseptics.
What does cough candy taste like?
One UK retailer describes it as having a herbal flavour. The flavour comes from flavourings; the recipe here does not list which herbs.
Is cough candy vegetarian?
The retailer here lists its cough candy as suitable for vegetarians, and the recipe contains no gelatine. Its red comes from beetroot red, E162.
Can children eat cough candy?
It is a hard boiled sweet, and the NHS says not to give young children hard foods such as boiled sweets, because of the risk of choking.
Sources
- Cough candy 120g, product listing, Sweets and Candy
- Throat lozenge, Wikipedia
- Army and Navy sweets, Wikipedia
- Foods to avoid giving babies and young children, NHS
Keep reading
- British heritage sweetsArmy and Navy sweetsArmy and Navy sweets are black, lozenge shaped boiled sweets with a liquorice and herb flavour, named, it seems, after First World War servicemen.
- British heritage sweetsColtsfoot rockColtsfoot Rock is a brittle stick of rock flavoured with coltsfoot extract, made only by Stockley's Sweets of Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, to a secret recipe.
- British heritage sweetsVictory V lozengesVictory V lozenges were first made in Lancashire in 1864 with ether, liquorice and chlorodyne, a medicine containing laudanum, cannabis and chloroform.
- 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.
- Diet, allergens and labelsHard sweets and young childrenThe NHS says not to give young children hard foods such as boiled sweets or whole nuts, because of choking. What to watch for, and what to do if a child chokes.