Last week, after my girlfriend Jamie planned a fun family night out, we headed down to
Logan's Candies for a tour and candy cane demonstration. Because we heard it was lot of fun, we invited our friends Alex and Haley to come along with us, which was a great choice. Not only do our kids adore them and want to be with them 24/7, they are great role models with great values and wonderful manners. So, we were happy to bring them along :) And glad we did because it was so cool for all of us to see the 'candy man' make candy canes from scratch.
Since the candy comes out an extremely hot, melted sugar, they have the kids watch from an outside window. We were all crowded in together, but everyone got a chance to see. The girl on the left explained what he was doing and allowed the kids to ask questions.
This is Jerry separating the white part and the red part. He added some peppermint extract ($600 for a very small amount apparently- wow!) and then some dye to make it red.
And then this is where it got super cool! He draped the 'white' sugar blob on a hook, and pulled it over and over again (looked very much like Rapunzel's shimmering hair!). He explained that as it was stretched, the sugar molecules met with oxygen and turned white. We watched it turn from copper to bright white right before our very eyes. SO cool!!
Another reason I thought this place was cool was because it's a family business through and through. The lady on the end is his wife, the middle his daughter and the 'candy man' himself. Everyone who works there is either family or close friends from their church family. Sweet.
Then the demo began, where he showed how to twist and twirl the candy to get the stripes:
And when he was finished, samples! They were right out of the oven, warm and delicious!
These are a few of 'our' kids sampling them. They liked 'em ;)
Then the fun part; the kids got to shape their own candy canes! They came out warm and pliable, so they were easy to bend. Lauren and Jake created traditional candy canes, Jake's a weird shape he was proud of (that's my Jake- marches to the beat of his own drum), and Haley created a heart.
At the end of the tour, Jerry shared the
Candy Cane story and gave a little snippet of why we celebrate Christmas (because of Christ's birth). We all thought it was awesome that a company would boldly share their faith, despite the probability of losing some customers who believed differently. And because we're small business owners as well, that made Justin and I want to support this small business more, so we bought lots of candy :)
All in all, a super fun night!
A special thanks to Alex and Haley for hanging with us, allowing the kids to hang all over them the entire time (and welcoming the hand holding), and enduring the massive sugar rush in the car ride home ;)
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