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Soor plooms
A little green sweet with a mouth puckering tang and a story that goes back to a bloody skirmish in 1337. Soor plooms are the pride of Galashiels.
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A soor ploom is a sharp flavoured, round, green boiled sweet from Galashiels, a town in the Scottish Borders. The name is Scots for sour plum, and the flavour lives up to it: sweet, but with a sharp, slightly acidic bite.
Sold the old way
Soor plooms are sold loose by weight in paper bags, traditionally by the quarter, meaning a quarter of a pound, about 113 g. That is how most traditional boiled sweets were sold before metric weights: see what a quarter of sweets means.
The skirmish of 1337
The sweets come with a story. According to local tradition, they were first made to remember an event in 1337, during the long wars between England and Scotland. A raiding party of English soldiers was discovered near Galashiels picking and eating unripe wild plums, and local men caught them by surprise and killed them all.
The episode became part of the town's identity. Galashiels's coat of arms shows two foxes reaching up to eat plums from a tree, and the town's motto is Sour Plums, pronounced in Scots as soor plooms.
A Borders favourite
Soor plooms have long been described as a childhood favourite in Scotland. They have appeared in the Scottish comic strips Oor Wullie and The Broons, and there is even a Border pipe tune from around 1700 called Soor Plooms of Galashiels.
Scotland's town sweets
The Scottish Borders and the towns around them have a remarkable tradition of local sweets, many tied to a single town. Just down the road, Hawick has its peppermint Hawick balls, and there is a friendly rivalry between the two towns. Over the border, Berwick cockles come from Berwick upon Tweed, and in Dumfriesshire there is Moffat toffee.
Similar sweets
If you like a sharp, fruity boiled sweet, try our 
Pear Drops, and read about other British boiled sweets in pear drops and sherbet lemons.
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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
What does soor ploom mean?
It is Scots for sour plum. The sweets are round, green and sharp flavoured, like an unripe plum.
Why is Galashiels linked to soor plooms?
In 1337, the story goes, English raiders were caught eating unripe plums near Galashiels and killed by local men. The town took Soor Plooms as its motto, and the sweets are said to commemorate the event.
Where can you buy soor plooms?
They are traditional in the Scottish Borders and sold loose by weight in sweet shops, usually in paper bags.
Sources
- Soor ploom, Wikipedia
- Galashiels, Wikipedia
Keep reading
- British heritage sweetsMoffat toffeeMoffat toffee is a boiled sweet with a tangy centre, made in the Scottish town of Moffat to a family recipe first used commercially in the late 19th century.
- British heritage sweetsBerwick cocklesBerwick cockles are white mints with red stripes, made since 1801, named after Berwick upon Tweed and shaped like a cockle shell with a rib round the middle.
- British heritage sweetsHawick BallsHawick Balls are minty, buttery boiled sweets from the Borders town of Hawick, said to date from the 1850s and linked with the commentator Bill McLaren.
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- Questions people askWhat is a quarter of sweets?A quarter of sweets is a quarter of a pound, 4 ounces or about 113 g. Loose sweets have been sold in metric since 2000, which led to the Metric Martyrs row.
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