A Few Words About Ginger

Longtime readers of our blog (hi mom!) may remember that Ginger flavors totally bombed at our first tasting party in the summer of 2009. In the spring of 2010, we made some small Ginger gem-shaped candies and embedded them in Coconut and Peach lollipops as a one-time batch for a client.

Ginger is one of the most common flavors that we get requests for. So when we started working on the Fruit Basket quartet last spring, we decided to give ginger another try. We tried Ginger-Peach and Ginger-Pear blends and included them among the 8-10 flavors we gave to our testers.

The feedback was a little more encouraging than it was in 2009. Instead of flat-out bombing, the ginger flavors were merely polarizing – they bombed with some people but were liked by others. That's progress, especially because we already traffic in polarizing flavors such as Vanilla-Cardamom and Salted Anise. Fans of those flavors love it and are excited that we make it. People who don't like them know to stay away.

Unfortunately for the ginger blends, though, there were five other flavors in the running that were more well-liked and more widely liked. So no ginger blends made it into the Fruit Basket. But the improved performance of ginger with our tasters gives us hope that we’re getting closer to having a ginger flavor we feel good about selling. Someday.