Tue Nov 15, 2016 07:46 in General Talk
Drop candy
The Dutch love their drop – that's Dutch for licorice. To give you an idea of how much they like this salty-sweet candy, the Dutch eat an average of 2kg of drop per person per year. Though there are more than 80 'typical' kinds of licorice in the Netherlands, and most grocery stores devote almost as much space to licorice as to chocolate and other candy combined, there are some basics that any licorice lover should know.
Typical drop flavours:
engelse drop – in English these are called allsorts; they are mixed shapes and most have a coconut or sugar candy layer.
zoute drop – 'salty licorice'; these are made with salmiak (ammonium chloride) to give a salty flavour.
dubbelzoute drop – 'double salty licorice'; this is just extra, extra salty, and an acquired taste.
zoete drop – sweet licorice.
laurierdrop – bay leaf licorice.
salmiakdrop – salmiak licorice; slightly different from zoute drop, these are usually hard candies with the salty salmiak flavour from ammonium chloride.
honingdrop – honey licorice; usually taken as a cough candy.
mintdropjes – mint drop; usually with a mint candy coating.
Typical drop shapes:
boerderijdrop – shaped like a boerderij, farmhouse.
muntdrop – shaped like munt, coins.
katjesdrop – shaped like katten, kittens.
dropveters – shaped like veters, laces.
griotten – soft, light brown cubes, the size of small sugar cubes and coated in sugar.
kokindjes – similar but black and not coated in sugar.