Sweet Indiana: Schrimpff's Candy

It turns out one great reason to visit Kentucky is in Indiana. The journey of my life has brought me to many unexpected places; geographically as well as spiritually and emotionally. I never would have thought that one of my favorite places in the second Louisville sojourn of my life would be a candy shop across the river. I am not even particularly fond of candy. I would rather spend my empty calories that lead to obesity on alcohol. If lemon drops were beer drops, then I would be more fond of candy.

If you are going to be in the Louisville area, I recommend a visit to Schimpff’s candy store in Jeffersonville Indiana as one of the coolest places to visit. The tour and demonstration turned out to be a surprisingly interesting education in 19th century candy making. The family business opened up in 1871. The candy shop has been making candy on site since 1891, and has been in the same family all that time. 

Getting to the candy store is a short walk across a pedestrian bridge from bustling and overgrown downtown Louisville to the sleepy mid 20th century time warp that is Jeffersonville, Indiana. Once over the river, it is just a few more blocks to the candy shop.

Walking across the bridge is worth the trip in and of itself. And old abandoned train bridge has been redesigned into a pleasant and popular pedestrian bridge to connect two alternate realities; Louisville vs. Jeffersonville. I remember when i was in medical school in the 90s, seeing this old train bridge in the middle of the river, with its connections to dry land removed on both sides. I always wondered why it was there, or why nothing better was ever done with it…or if not, then remove it. It had been disconnected from the river shores for decades, a mysterious section of a bridge that nearly spanned the river. During twenty years that I was gone from Louisville, someone had the foresight to make use of this bridge, converting it into what is now a very nice and quite popular pedestrian-only bridge.  

Once you make it over the river and through the quaint village of Jeffersonville, the candy destination is well worth it. Generations of candy makers run the store, descendants of the founders. They are charismatic, kind and jovial, and put on a good show as well as an education. They demonstrated the 19th century methods of making hard candy, and then gave us samples. They used tools that had been in the family business for over 100 years, heating sugar to deadly temperatures, stirring, cooling, forming into shapes, and finally sharing with the audience of the moment, all while entertaining and informing.  The event was such a convivial experience that I thought about shouting out that I had one of the golden tickets, in hopes they would take me back to the REAL secret factory, the secret world of “real” candy making. But then I saw  my reflection; wearing a blue shirt and twenty pounds overweight, I realized that I was the fat one that would be sucked up into a vat of chocolate. I could think of worse ways to die, but I was not ready to check out yet. 

I learned that the name “Lemon Drop” comes from the final step; the cook drops a just-cooled large sheet of hard candy onto a hard surface, allowing it to shatter into pieces. This is much better than if it had been named after the modern process, which would have given us “Impersonal Robotic Industrial Nutriontless Lemon Pellets” which would have been had to sell.  

Schimpff’s candy store is well worth the trip. They have a little 50’s style lunch counter, and a compelling candy museum. While their demonstrations are of hard candies; particularly lemon drops and red hots, they hand make all kinds of candies. There is plenty of chocolate for you chocolophiles. 

Visit their website, or better yet, visit them in person:

http://www.schimpffs.com