It’s November, and Halloween is gone and done for another year. The spooky décor is back in the basement, the Monster Mash will soon be replaced by Mariah Carey’s multi-octave merriment, and every Canadian and American office has a bowl of leftover fun-size candy waiting to tempt staff into rolling the dice with their fillings. And in that bowl, there’s a damned good chance you’ll find that quintessential Halloween treat: the humble Tootsie Roll.
Unlike Halloween Kisses, which have been tragically haunting Canadian children’s candy-filled pillowcases for generations, the Tootsie Roll is a classic treat that I’m glad still exists. They feel like something from another era, a holdover from a time where chocolate was expensive, and candies were smaller and simpler and had only a handful of ingredients. They’re wrapped in waxed paper, not shiny modern plastic with metallic accents, and the logo and colour scheme haven’t changed for as long as I can remember.
The Tootsie Roll entry on Wikipedia notes they’ve been around since 1907, which is both surprising and not. To put that in historical context, they’ve been through both world wars, and they saw both the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. Tastes are fickle, and candies come and go, so I’m always impressed when a treat can find a niche and ride it for more than a century.
Finding the dang things
Once I knew I wanted to write about Tootsie Rolls, I needed to figure out where I could actually buy Tootsie Rolls in 2024. Even though I’ve always loved the things, I can’t remember the last time I actively looked for Tootsie Rolls. In my youth, I would sometimes find a larger Tootsie Roll bar at a corner store in Winnipeg that was affordable on my modest allowance. But on modern candy racks, they must blend into the background, because I couldn’t recall where I’d last seen them. My fear was that Tootsie Rolls had become a Halloween-only treat, available for purchase in large bags for handing out one night per year, but then unavailable for another 11 months.
I wound up tracking some down in Canada via the always interesting candy selection at London Drugs (though they may only stock them around Halloween?), Save-On Foods, Bulk Barn, and, what luck, at Dollarama! I’m not entirely sure how the economics of dollar stores work, but I wasn’t going to argue with pouches of around 19 Tootsie Roll “midgees” selling for a bargain $1.50.
What are they? A confectionary enigma
If I had to describe a Tootsie Roll to someone who’d never tried one, I’d say it’s a strange hybrid of chocolate, caramel, and taffy, with a touch of hard-to-nail-down fruitiness (maybe orange citrus?). The treats don’t actually contain chocolate, per se. They’re made with cocoa, whey, and milk ingredients, so they hint at chocolate without outright tasting like chocolate. The consistency is not at all like chocolate. Rather, it’s chewy like taffy and melty like soft caramel. Fresh ones, like the midgees I picked up at Dollarama, are surprisingly soft once you bite into them. They’re sticky, but also slick. The second ingredient, after sugars, is palm oil, and the mouthfeel and texture reflect that.
Which all means it’s hard to explain why they’re so damned good. They’re sweet, but they don’t hit with the rich, sugary impact of milk chocolate. They have a satisfying chew, but they don’t require a ton of jaw work. The texture is lightly grainy, but smooths out and dissolves reasonably quickly.
There’s something subtle about Tootsie Rolls that doesn’t exist in a lot of modern candies, and I’m not sure something like this would take hold in the market today.
The Details
Price: $1.50 for a 119-gram bag at Dollarama in Edmonton, Canada.
Value for Money: Very good.
Availability: Limited. Around Halloween, they’re easy to find. Otherwise, prepare to do some digging.
Nutrition: 140 calories per 6 midgees. That’s just shy of 25 calories per candy.
Verdict: They’re polarizing, but I love them. It’s a chocolate treat that isn’t quite chocolate, and has a satisfyingly chewy texture. Now that I know where to find them, I plan to make the effort to buy them more than once a year.