It’s almost Christmas, and you’re pretty much done with the shopping. You have the latest video game, the newest iPhone, the requisite box of new socks, some Star Wars action figures, and a bike that took you nearly a whole weekend to assemble. Good job, but you’re not done yet: That stocking is going to look mighty thin without a bunch of candy.
Instead of heading to Target to fill a cart with Life Savers Storybooks and generic candy canes and peppermint-flavored versions of whatever sweets you and the kids might eat the rest of the year, why not do something more interesting? Something new, something special. If you really want to stuff your stocking, visit one of these ten candy stores (or all of them). Merry, merry.
Hammond's Candies
5735 Washington Street
Denver’s candy list could almost begin and end with Hammond's, a company that isn’t just a local tradition, but a national one, too. For nearly a century now, the north Denver company has been supplying kids and kids at heart with all the gorgeously spun hard candies, the creamiest nougats, the richest chocolates and generally speaking the most sugary hometown indulgences that a jolly old elf could ask for. Forget the milk and cookies, kids — Santa wants some vanilla caramels and ribbon candy.
Rocket Fizz
1512 Larimer Street
Sort of the opposite of Hammond's sits Rocket Fizz. While the Writer Square shop does make some of its own products, is mainly a purveyor of unique, weird, funny and hard-to-find candies that already exist (even in the isolated corners) of the candy market. It’s also far from local (it started in California), and not at all long-standing (the chain as a whole won’t be a decade old until next year), but if you’re looking for candy that won’t just be delicious, but will also invoke a smile? Here’s the place, right downtown, as well as in locations around the Metro area.
City Pop
1561 Champa Street
Looking for a yummy mix of old-time candy, bins full of sugary goodness and gourmet caramel and candied popcorn in more than seventy flavors? Look no further than downtown's delicious City Pop, which opened in 2013 (and has a satellite location in the Streets at Southglenn in Centennial). Come for the candy, stay for the popcorn. And who says you can’t fill a stocking with popcorn, anyway? Pick a flavor: Bacon cheddar? Banana? Christmas mix? Cornfetti? — and start a new stocking-stuffing tradition.
Enstrom Candies
201 University Boulevard, #118
Chester K. “Chet” Enstrom was known back in the day among family and friends for making some dang good almond toffee. Chet had grown up working with sweets — ice cream, confections of all sorts — but in 1960, he and his wife, Vernie, decided to start up their own little store. By 1965, Enstrom Candies was shipping product worldwide, and the company has never looked back. Luckily, the toffee tastes just as good — and just as homemade — as it did way back then. Check out everything Enstrom has to offer either in the Cherry Creek location or in Arvada.
Dubbel Dutch
4974 Lowell Boulevard
This north-side enclave of Dutch delicacy does it up Netherlands-style every year, providing cultural treats for Sinterklaas, from kerstkransjes (Christmas cookies) to stroopwafels (sort of a syrup-wafer that was made to warm slowly over a steaming cup of coffee or cocoa and be more awesome than words can communicate). Thanks to Dubbel Dutch, you can put something your family won’t recognize in their stockings this year — and they'll eat it up before they can ask what it is. Fijne feestdagen!
IT’SUGAR
500 16th Street, Suite 184-A
Okay, some of you might object to the name of this store on sheer spelling, spacing and capitalization rules alone. (I’m with you.) But that aside, there’s a cornucopia of candies available at IT'SUGAR's downtown location, which is the Denver outpost of a national chain that was founded in 2006 by folks who’d originally worked on the FAO Schwartz candy shop, FAO Schweetz. The stores boast a plethora of unique candy and candy gift boxes with themes like Stranger Things and Saturday Night Live. Schweddy Balls, anyone?
Jerry’s Nut House
2101 Humboldt Street
Another local tradition, Jerry’s Nut House has been around for seventy years, starting up in and going strong since 1948. It’s not just that Denver families have been enjoying Jerry’s Nut House treats for generations — it’s also the name. Come on; who doesn’t want a jar of treats from Jerry’s Nut House? It’s Jerry’s Nut House.
Mexicandy
2536 Sheridan Boulevard
From tamarind candy to chamoy to cajeta, Mexican candy has legions of aficionados who can’t live without the sweet and sour or salty stuff. And Mexicandy carries one of the best selections of Mexican candy in Denver — plus piñatas, if you want to get festive in semi-violent fashion.
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Scrumptious
7523 Grandview Avenue, Arvada
Both Arvada and Longmont boast locations of this kitschy and delicious ice cream and candy store. The candy isn't made on location, but the ice cream is homemade, and you might just find a soda pop that you haven’t had since you got it for two dimes out of a machine back in the 1970s. A soda in a stocking? Uncommon, but, hey, you gotta have something to wash down all the rest of the sweet stuff. And that's only one of the options waiting for you at Scrumptious.
Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory
500 16th Street, Suite 118
1512 Larimer Street, #44-R
This international juggernaut of both chocolate and franchises was humbly born in Durango back in 1981, because the owner couldn’t open a See’s Candies…because See's didn’t franchise. Boy, did he learn something from that experience. Since then, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory shops have proliferated: There are two within blocks of each other in downtown Denver, and thirteen total in the Denver metro area. Which makes sense: With more than 300 different house-recipe candies from which to choose, there’s something for every sweet tooth — and every stocking.
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