Red and white striped peppermint candy canes used as tasty treats and decoration are such a familiar part of our Christmas holiday tradition that most of us probably don’t think much about their history.  There are a number of stories, dating back to the 1600s, while fun to consider they do not have substantial evidence to prove them valid. 

There is the story of the choirmaster giving candy to children in his congregation so they would behave well in church, or the secret form of identification used by European Christians during a time of persecution, or the hook shape representing the “J” in Jesus, or alternatively a hook representing shepherds, or the story of August Imgard who supposedly was the first to decorate a tree with candy canes.  Again, none of these stories can be substantiated.  chocolate bean machine

While the origin of peppermint candy is unclear, historical accounts show that peppermint oils have been used since ancient times to calm the stomach and for other remedies.

English-language references to “candy canes” and their association with Christmas didn’t begin to appear until the latter half of the 19th century, two hundred years after the candy canes supposedly had been invented, and were a popular Christmastime confection. Red-and-white striped candy didn’t start showing up until around the early 1900s. 

Given that candy canes were used as much for decoration as eating in the early days, it’s not difficult to figure that an enterprising person had the great idea of adding the colorful red stripe.  It should also be noted that a little over a half-century or so before stripes were known to be added to candy canes, there is a reference of white peppermint candy sticks with colored stripes.  These weren’t crooked candy canes, but perhaps this helped create the incentive for stripes on peppermint candy canes when, in the early 20th century, various candy makers started experimenting with other flavors, including peppermint.

The existence of candy sugar sticks with colored stripes has been documented at least as far back as 1844, but visual evidence of the J-shaped, white-with-a-red-stripe modern candy cane did not appear until the beginning of the 20th century. Christmas cards produced before 1900 show plain white canes, but striped canes only started to appear on Christmas cards at the beginning of the 20th century

For all the myths, there is a confirmed history of the candy cane as we enjoy it today. This originated in 1919 with Robert (Bob) McCormack who began making candy canes for local use and sales in Albany, Georgia. By the middle of the century his company (originally the Famous Candy Company, then the Mills-McCormack Candy Company, and later Bobs Candies, owned today by the Ferrara Candy Company) had become one of the world’s leading candy cane producers.  Candy cane manufacturing initially required a fair bit of labor that limited production quantities as the canes had to be bent manually and many of those made in machines were broken. The candy company lost about 22% in 1950 to breakage.   McCormack asked his brother-in-law, a Catholic priest named Gregory Harding Keller, to invent a machine to solve this problem. In 1957 Keller applied for a patent for the candy cane forming machine. The machine twisted the soft candy into spiral striping and then cut the candy. By 1956 because of this machine Bob McCormack’s candy company was to quote the Albany Herald, “The world’s largest peppermint candy producer.”     

Today all of our candy comes in some kind of wrapping, but an interesting fact is that Bobs was the first candy wrapped in cellophane. In modern candy making the candy is wrapped in cellophane before shaping into the cane. 

In the early 1980s Bobs Candies produced what was at the time the world’s largest candy cane, an eight-foot-long crook that weighed more than 100 pounds. 

Candy Packaging Machine The next time you pick up the familiar package of red and white striped candy canes with the familiar “Bobs” on the wrapping, just think you are holding a bit of history.