Schimpff's Confectionary

 As a family outing, we crossed the bridge from Louisville to Jeffersonville, IN to visit the Schimpff's Confectionary store, where they still make their own candy and chocolate.

Located at the current place in 1891 by German immigrant Gus Schimpff and his family, this confectionery has been making candy through three great floods of the Ohio River, the Great Depressions, and several wars now.  They first started making candy in Louisville in the 1850s (on Preston Street) but moved across the river in 1871.  It makes me wonder if the Hauss family (my German great great great?- grandparents) confectionery was their main competition or not (I'm not sure of the location of my relatives' storefront.)  

Cinnamon Red Hots are a signature of Schimpff's candy , having been making them since 1891.  The current owners, still Schimpffes!, make the candy on the same equipment.

They boil the corn starch, sugar, water, and a bit of red coloring today ( I am sure I am missing some ingredient)  until it reaches boiling point-- I think that is near 300 ºF.








Once it is reached the correct temperature, they pour out the liquid onto a the antique table that has plumbing underneath the metal top -- so they can turn on hot or cool water to help cool the candy.

 

 

Once the candy start to cool, that is when the cinnamon oil is added to flavor the candy. As Mrs. Schimpff kept reminding us, cinnamon oil comes from China at $50 for a 20 oz bottle.  They use about 1.5 oz of oil to flavor  a small "demonstration" batch, like what they were making today.

After they pour on the oil, they mix into the candy by continual folding it over and over.  The oil seeps into it. 

At the appropriate moment, when the candy has cooled to a certain point but is still mailable, it is time to snip the large lump into smaller lumps to run it through the press. 

The press is what gives the red hot its shape.  At one point this was all hand cranked, but not it is is slightly motorized.

Schipmff's Confectionery has the largest collection of candy press rollers in the country (maybe she said the world).  Depending on what hard candy they are making depends on what shapes they use.  They typically use only three shapes for their red hots, lemon drops, and horehound cough drops.

A demonstration batch will make about 1,500 red hots.  Each strip will cool on the butcher block counter top, coated in sugar so nothing sticks.

And to get separate, individual red hots?

You just pick up a strip and they break apart!  One doesn't even have to drop the strip or anything.  At this point, the candy is still slightly warm but definitely hard.  That is when they pass out a sample. I have to say, it is fantastic.



The store is getting ready for Easter and has lots of flowers and bunnies out.  The counters were full of brightly colored candies of all types: chocolate , coconut, peanut butter cremes, caramels.  You name it, they had it.  And we bought it.