I <3 candy

I’ve just come back from Nichols Candies in Gloucester, MA and am about to fall into a sugar coma. I am, needless to say, very happy. My parents recently moved to the area and I have found myself driving past Nichols on numerous occasions, its enormous CANDY sign readily visible from Rte. 128, whatever speed you’re going. I hadn’t ever had occasion to go inside the store, though — it was just a seamless part of the landscape, noted and then forgotten like too many of the things I drive past in life.

But now, thankfully, all that has changed. After a friend brought us some of their homemade confections for dinner the other night, I realized I had to go to this magical place immediately. You walk in to a sugary smelling house and are immediately confronted with an awesome selection of taffies and chocolates and caramels and more, and if you go early enough you can see them making everything through a glass window that looks in to the kitchen where the magic happens.

Nichols has been a fixture in Gloucester for decades (this is its 77th year) and they seem to know what they’re doing — everything I put in my mouth melted into a glob of deliciousness. My personal favorites are their chocolate covered honeycomb and the half-dipped wintergreen mints, pictured below.