Humbug (candy)

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Humbugs are a traditional hard boiled sweet (US:candy) available in the United Kingdom. They are usually flavored with peppermint and striped in two different colors (often black and white). Humbugs are typically cylinders with rounded ends wrapped in a twist of cellophane, or else pinched cylinders with a 90-degree turn between one end and the other (shaped like a pyramid with rounded edges), loose in a bag.

They are more often eaten in winter than summer, on account of being 'warming', though have nothing to do with the phrase "Bah Humbug", quoted in popular culture from Dickens' A Christmas Carol. That expression implies a general dissatisfaction with the Christmas season. However, offering humbugs around Christmas time is now seen by some as humerous or ironic, and indeed featured in a Blackadder sketch in this manner.