Here's why American candy is fruit flavored - a history 

And to celebrate that sweet, sweet moment, they planted a lemon tree: lemons being the sweetest fruit available at the time.

I would argue that Grapes have made their way into the “big 5” of fruits these days. If not just for the contrast their purple coloring gives candies. They’re especially common in things like fruit snacks and popsicles.

"What is culture if not the stuff around us too common to contemplate?" Is one of my favorite things you've ever said. It summarizes why I love your videos on middle class and food and stuff so well

Fun Fact: Early slot machines or "trade stimulators" in bars would have to get around gambling laws by dispensing fruit gum along with your spin. This way the player was technically purchasing a piece of gum when they put a coin in the machine instead of gambling. This is where the common fruit themed slot machine symbols originated. The lemons, prunes, melons, and cherries were all gum flavors.

I always thought it was silly that the only flavour that wasn't incredibly sour and painful to eat was strawberry. As it turns out, I'm a bit allergic to citrus 😅

"What is culture, but the things around us too common to contemplate" that was worded so well

As an American: Grape ABSOLUTELY belongs in the classic fruit flavor stable. Lemon is my favorite, personally.

Funny how fruit flavors were exotic to people at the time they were made but now I'd consider spice and flower flavored candies to be exotic since I don't see them often. save for mint and cinnamon since they're still common but something in me still considered them mature and adult flavors.

I think "Blue Raspberry" deserves a spot on the top 5. The "Blue" flavor not based off of any real fruit, but is incredibly common.

My grandma grew up as a Mennonite in Paraguay, she said they had lots of citrus but apples were a rare luxury. She tells a story of a time when her boyfriend got her an apple as a gift, and she couldn't bring herself to eat it, so instead she just smelled it while it lasted. When she came to Canada, she saw a basket of apples in someone's house and assumed they were rich.

This video helps me understand why spice drops (now often relegated to Christmas time) are not more common. I love those herbal, floral, and spicy candies like clove, rose, anise, and violet. I hope some more of them will make a comeback!

One of my favourite candies ever was one of the first sour candies that was made at an industrial scale in India. It's made of a raw mango flavour with, believe it or not, sugary rock salt stuffed inside the hard candy shell. They have tons of flavours like tamarind, guava, litchi and even cola, but that raw mango is pretty unique.

I'm Mexican, and when JJ said that we consume a lot of lemons my first thought was "that's not true!". But there's fresh lemonade in the fridge and we make around 6 to 9 liters of it for my family of four by week, and this week alone I've eaten almost every meal with squeezed lemon too, so, after all, it is truth. Weird how there are aspects of my own culture that I just don't notice until a foreigner points them out. Great video BTW

American here: Grape could be a big contender for the big 5. However other parts of the world would more readily recognize something like Black Currant than our menagerie.

I got a perfectly timed ad: JJ: why is it not- Ad: 2 PIZZAS, BREADSTICKS, AND WINGS

I remember taking a ziplock bag of Maraschino cherries to lunch with me when I was 7 or 8 after seeing them by the ice cream toppings and begging my mom for them. Looking back on that I can only imagine how strange I looked to everyone else at the lunch table. Wtf was I even doing back then lmao

When I see a green fruit candy I generally associate it with green apple instead of lime. I feel like apple has definitely earned its spot. Also blue raspberry definitely deserves an honorable mention. It has a cult following in the states. I'd love to see you talk about how that came to be.

I feel like grape has surpassed lime- everything has a grape, from jolly ranchers to skittles. Heck, even green Apple has almost replaced like in my part of the states.

While I have definitely seen a lot of lemon, lime, strawberry, cherry, and orange flavored candies in variety packs here in the US, I think as standalone flavors watermelon and grape are just as common, sometimes even in the mix of the big five (often by mixing lemon-lime). There is also green apple and the whole blue raspberry thing. Mixed berry though has to be one of the most common flavor sets now alongside citrus and tropical. So I'd say there is a less of a clear big five and more clusters now of flavors you will see side by side.

GRAPE!!! YOu forgot grape in the divine flavor foundation, I'm with the Grape Flavor Army and we demand you amend this video!

In India, as you can guess, we have a lot of Mango flavoured ones. Some are ripe and sweet ones and some are unripe and sour ones. Both taste really good.

This is not about candy specifically, but in Brazil there is this Amazonian fruit called guaraná which everyone knows because it is the flavour of the most popular soda in the country. If you throw a party or go to a restaurant the two options of soda you'll always find are Coke and Guaraná. There is this one brand, Guaraná Antártica which is the most beloved one and coca cola had tried to break into the market many times with their own version of the drink, but Brazilians always prefer Guaraná Antártica.

Here in Mexico, people like pineapple candy more than lemon flavored candy. Even though we get lots of American candy, locally produced candy usually have a pineapple/lime/orange/strawberry/mint lineup. Tamarind candy is very popular as well, but it exists more as its own independent entity. We also have a different ice cream lineup, instead of vanilla/strawberry/chocolate, we usually have lime, mamey, guava, strawberry and "burned milk." For sweet drinks, we have the Horchata/Jamaica duo, but tamarind and lime are also common. And yes, Mexican soil really must be good for growing lime, because most people with gardens have lime trees in them, and you don't even need to take care of them they just thrive. No wonder we use them so much. Ironically, chocolate doesn't seem to be a particularly beloved flavour. Chocolate bars are usually seen as "ok, they are tasty" and little more. There's more of an inclination for hot cocoa and other chocolate based drinks like champurrado. "Ate" used to be very popular, but it's made out of an endangered species of cactus that doesn't do well in captivity, so it got banned (apparently there's a whole underground illegal trade for the stuff)

For context, I'm from Finland. I consider Haribo's Goldbears to have the real line up: green for pear, red for strawberry, darker red for raspberry (these two are hard to differentiate), orange for orange, yellow for lemon and sort of a clear colour for pineapple. This is kinda my reference guide for candy flavours And as a citizen of the promised land of liquorice/salty liquorice, I love liquorice. Here little bit of aniseed is sometimes used in making liquorice, but I've never heard of plain aniseed candies before. I know people eat fennel candies in some parts of the world, which kinda resemble the taste of liquorice

Oh, so that’s why old-fashioned candies have flavors like “clove” and “hot cinnamon”!

Actually, two spice flavors have easily stood the test time time as far as candy goes: Mint and Cinnamon. Mint candies are all over, including Lifesavers making their own to entire brands built around being Curiously Strong, and Cinnamon is usually the underlying flavor for most "spicy" / "hot" candies, which are still quite common to see.

I'm from New Zealand, and from what I can see candy (lollies in NZ English) have 6-7 default flavours when it comes to assorted packs: Raspberry[sometimes Strawberry] (red) , Lemon (white), Blackcurrant (purple), Orange (orange), Lime[sometimes Apple] (green), Pineapple (yellow) & [sometimes]Aniseed (black). The only odd thing to me with the American colours was yellow being lemon, as I grew up with white being lemon and yellow being pineapple.

Scandinavia: "We also have a top 5 fruit flavor list: - Licorice."

Banana flavor? That has a history of its own but isn’t that popular as it once was. But the “Blue” Raspberry may be the runner up you left off. That’s an iconic flavor as well.

Here's a joke on this topic: A teacher handed out Life Savers to her class. She began to ask the children if they could identify the flavor by each candy’s color. Pretty soon, the class had identified red for cherry, green for lime, yellow for lemon, and orange for orange. So the teacher tried a harder question. She handed out HONEY Life Savers. Nobody could figure out what they were, so the teacher gave a hint: “They’re like something your mother might call your father.” One little girl immediately looked horrified and spit her candy out. “Oh my GOD!!! They’re ASSHOLES!!!”

In Germany, a green flavor called “Waldmeister” (sweet woodruff, literally “Forest master”) is common.

Grape and Blue Raspberry have certainly made it into the Canon. That's pretty much undeniable. It's hard to say which is more common because some candies include one and not the other (skittles and the new sour patch kids lineup).

Turkey's maybe most famous "candy" is turkish delight which has tens of different flavours but the default one is usually the rose flavour. Some foreigners I've talked can't really like it right away beacuse they say it is very distinct. Interestingly, even though rose flavour is not commonly used in any other food here, the default turkish delight did not ever came out as distinct to me, probably because I've been consuming it since childhood. However, once I visited a city called Isparta which is famous for its roses and rose-infused products and tasted rose flavoured ice cream. In that moment I realized that very distinctive flavour because I wasn't used to it in the ice cream. I mean it had little leaf chunks an all but was delicious neverthless lol

Fun lil' addition to this line-up in the UK is Blackcurrant flavour, which is equally ubiquitous due, in part, to the Second World War. During the conflict, imported foodstuffs were restricted by the Atlantic blockade, and the industrial and military demands on manpower led to a shortage of agricultural labour. In response to this, the government incentivised the cultivation of blackcurrant plants, as they represented one of only sweet sources vitamin C that grew year-round, and as a bonus they could grow on very poor quality land with minimal cultivation, thus not impacting the production of staple crops. Thus during the war, blackcurrant became the most popular fruit flavour enjoyed by British adults and children alike, most notably in Ribena - a sort of blackcurrant squash, but also in confectionery as well to a more limited degree. By the end of the war, it had become a staple fruit flavour among the British public, resulting in its expected inclusion in any assortment of fruit-flavoured sweet things. As a fun bonus fact, to celebrate the end of the war, and mark the end of the pressures of the battle of the Atlantic, the government organised the shipment of one banana per child to every household in the country - something all my grandparents remember vividly as it was the first time they'd seen such exotic fruit. However, as the bananas were delivered to the household, not the children, there are also several stories of parents eating their children's bananas instead. Great video and have a lovely day

If I'm getting domestic candy, lime is my favorite of the big five. But I always am on the lookout for British candies where instead of grape flavors, you get currant. And that, in my opinion, is always the best candy flavor.

I LOVE your videos my guy. They seem like they take so much effort to make. Idk how you're not burned out, releasing one every week. Keep it up! Take care of yourself

I was one of the people who was heartbroken when Skittles tried to remove lime flavored skittles from the pack. Sorry JJ, but it’s my favorite. Every time a beloved lime candy is replaced with apple, I shed a tear. I hate artificial apple. 😭 I love lemon too, but lime is #1 in my heart (of the big 5/6). I count grape as one of the big 6; I feel like it’s getting rarer for there to be strawberry and cherry at the same time, since they are both colored red, so grape often takes the place of whichever red fruit got the axe.

The realisation that fruits used to be so much rarer brings things like, say, Russians eating mandarin oranges on New Year's Eve, a lot more understandable. What other fruit to celebrate this big holiday than that which does not naturally grow in your country and is thus super-rare?

One thing I love about visiting the Rocky Mountains, especially Montana, is picking up Huckleberry flavored stuff from gift shops. I’m not really sure how different the flavor is from blueberry, but I think it’s great and a reflection of how the local ecosystem exists in the food.

Many people have already mentioned that "Grape" flavored candies have largely entered the pantheon of the Big 5 due to their ubiquitousness. But I'd like to argue that "Watermelon" has been increasingly entering this club over the past two decades in the US. I'd say it was spurned by the general popularity of Jolly Ranchers and specifically their Watermelon-flavored products. "Blue Raspberry" is also a very popular candy flavor. One fruit flavor you'll rarely see in candy within the US is "Black Currant", as the plant the flavor was derived from was banned from being farmed within the US in the early 1900's due to being a vector of "white pine blister rust", a species of fungus that threatened the logging industry. The federal ban was shifted to individual state jurisdiction in 1966, and a few states have since lifted the ban, but it still remains illegal to farm in several states. So it's still relatively unknown to many Americans, and is only just starting to make a comeback. I myself was in high school when I learned black currant was even a thing, though I've since had it as both a candy and a jam. Quite good, though more tart than most fruit-derived products I'm used to.

I think lychee should become more popular here! Occasionally the Japanese section of our market will have lychee flavored sodas and candies, and they have such a nice, refreshing flavor.

I remember long ago my mom talking about the gum they would buy as kids: Black Jack, Clove, Tea…something, and I want to say Beech Nut (? I‘ll have to google it). She said there were a lot of spice-/herb-type candy and gum when she was little. There was something else they would chew besides chewing gum, and it wasn’t fruit flavored. Unfortunately, I don‘t remember what it was, and she isn’t around anymore to ask. I also remember going to the store when I was little and picking out penny candy, which literally cost a penny a piece. Mom said, as a kid, they would do chores, get a penny, go to the store, and get a whole BAG of candy for one cent. That always amazed me. This has nothing to do with the video, but I remember mom would eat things that I called “depression food”, because it was what they ate as little kids growing up during The Great Depression. For instance, she often made “cereal” for herself, which was a bowl of bread torn into small pieces, with milk and maybe some sugar. I’d say, “Mom…there’s Frosted Flakes in the cupboard, smh”. Maybe it was comfort food for her.

Wow, I am astounded by the amount of detail you go into in these videos!!! Tyyy for your hard work!!

My mom would always call dibs on the red and orange candies, leaving the yellow, green (and black) ones for my dad and I. Out of necessity those became our favourites. I love a good lemon candy, and anise seed ("black licorice") jelly beans are probably the ones I like the most. I also enjoy old-fashioned spice and herb-based candies. Mint, cinnamon etc.

McCullough’s forays into the history and depth behind American “canons”, whether of halloween monsters, fruity candy flavors, or even flag designs, display an encouraging depth of sociological perspective. Through these videos, he encourages his viewers to question the things they view as normal, inviting them in to being mini sociologists.

"Lemon, Orange, Lime, and... red?" Got a chuckle out of that one

I love the way you talk, it makes me smile. Thanks bud.

I love that you’re so enthusiastic about candy!! Make more candy vids tomorrow!!! Thank you!!

In my region of France, there was and still is a tradition of flavouring things with violets, particularly marshmallow! The flower also has a distinctive purple shade, which makes them quite attractive. It's difficult to find mass produced sweets with violet flavouring, but ice cream shops and fine goods stores can have them on sale

I'm disappointed that pharmacies weren't mentioned. The weird flavors originate from old concepts for cough drops, a spoon full of sugar helps the bitter herbs bind together. Pharmacists had a lot of methods for administering medicine back when they did everything from scratch, that's kinda how soda fountains happened...

Those small, shrimpy things (at 7:25) had more taste and were more delicious than any modern tasteless, but beautiful, strawberry of today's supermarkets. I should know - they grew in the field behind my house when I was a young girl.

I grew up fairly poor in a small town in Arizona, I remember once my dad got a big promotion and we started being able to afford more things. We went into the city to buy a new car and we spent all day looking at cars, my sister and I were bored and hungry and the salesman took us into their break room and in the fridge there was a bunch of strawberries and that was the first time my sister and I had ever had real, big juicy strawberries. It's still a pretty big memory.

I feel like grape is also a big flavor that's being left out.

Watermelon and sour green apple are also very generic flavours these days Oh and that banana flavour that actually tastes like the now extinct banana variety that died out from a fungus/blight in the 1950’s, if I remember correctly! It seems like medication is one of the last things to always be flavoured with that extinct banana species flavour… Oh and a new fungus is apparently ravaging banana plantation again, so we may soon have a new banana flavour! I guess having all your plants clones of one plant and a massive mono culture really is a big risk when I new disease develops, or is introduced…

This was a very aesthetically pleasing video to watch

this guy kickstarted my want to know a lot about random stuff, to this i thank you for being my gateway to spending hours consuming videos and articles of random things

I'm an American and I'd actually guess that we have more grape candy than strawberry candy. Maybe not in old-timey brands like Necco, but it seems to be a more common staple. Not that the grape flavor actually tastes like grapes very much, but hey. ;) I also found out that the reason why we always ask "why does banana candy not taste like banana" is that it DOES, just for a variety of banana that got wiped out but used to be the main species people ate. Modern bananas are a different variety and that's why the candy tastes different than the fresh fruit!

How could JJ forget the king of fruit candy flavors, whatever the hell “blue raspberry” is.

"After all, it is the things we take for granted that are often the purest manifestation of our culture....What is culture if not the stuff around us too common to contemplate?" I just started watching these vids and this! This is why cultural anthropology is so cool (and why I've now subscribed to this channel) :)

I actually really like lime flavored candy that's one of my favorites. I think it's the sharp contrast between the tanginess of the lime and the sugar. Also I would say at this point purple grape is the unofficial sixth flavor. Probably followed by blue raspberry and pineapple.

In Sweden you will find many candies, soft drinks, and other sweet "foods" with pear flavour. I haven't seen any other European country be as obsessed with pears as Sweden is (we even have pear flavoured sparkling water) In general our favourite fruits are of course the pears, but also apples, cherries, plums, roseships, red- and blackcurrants, cloudberries, raspberries etc (pretty much every type of berry you can find in a taiga or the tundra). When it comes to kompot (or saft as we say) the favourite of the Swedes is forest berries and especially currants if it's the homemade kind since it can grow even in the most northern regions on the country. We also love making soups out of blueberries and roseships and even sell them in tetrapaks in the store like milk or juice. This comment kind of got away from me but I hope you learned something interesting about my country!

As a European I don't remember ever having lime flavored candy. The green ones are always Apple. Strawberry, lemon and orange are definetely in every bag of candies though. For some reason pineapple candies are usually gray.

Black currant flavor is pretty big in the UK. It pretty much replaces grape as the "purple one".

Love your content bro, your vids are so cool and informative and interesting and you have one of the chillest voices and personalities. Keep making vids dude you’re pretty cool!

In the UK, our big five is lemon, lime, orange , strawberry like the US, with the addition of Blackcurrant (which isnt grown in the US); its usually a black or dark purple, and is devisive. The black wine gum is either the first out of the bag, or the last left. Blackcurrant fruit shoots are a symbol of childhood, similar to the apple juice box

Honestly, the way cough syrups defaulted to cherry for flavoring during my childhood has to this day kept me from any cherries or cherry flavored items.

It's really funny how you play with the fruit as you talk, it's very entertaining!

Dang, this was super informative, interesting and historically accurate, you earned your like.

I think " blue raspberry" has definitely become mainstream from blue raspberry slushis, lemonade, candies, etc. Often presented as an opposite to "red" whether that be cherry or strawberry.

In Denmark, I dont think most people would refer to the “green flavour” as lime, but rather pear or apple in some instances, since lime is still considered a relatively recent fruit here. Idk if the flavour is the same though

I'm a big fan of green apples and watermelons myself. It also surprises me that there's not much apricot flavored candy outside of dried apricots.

J.J. had the most historically accurate mullet

The "green = limes" part is really weird to me, in Germany one of the first flavours you associate with green is Waldmeister (wikipedia translates it as "sweet woodruff") a small herb that tastes similar to cinnamon. For a long time the green gummy bear was strawberry flavoured until they replaced it with apple, which is the 2nd most common association. I don' think there is any major brand that uses lime.

This man is the most interesting combination of different groups. He has the hair and mustache style of the 80’s, the accent of a Canadian when saying words like about and around, he has the facial expressions and head positioning of a surfer dude, and he up-talks where you end your sentences in a higher pitch.

The FF6 shout out with the industrial sound was fantastic. Love your work, my friend.

I like these types of videos

Blue raspberry is a flavor so powerful that most people think it’s an actual fruit

For me, lime has always been a close second to cherry and I've never thought that it may have more to do with me being Hispanic and being born and raised in Texas. These videos never fail to give me a much more broad perspective of the world than I'm used to. Thank you so much J.J., you're very much appreciated!

Great video and your accent makes these videos even better!

A part two of sorts for this video could be about the banana flavor and how most people claim it does not taste the same of the common banana we eat from the grocer, it’d be interesting to find out about similar flavors that share this same experience

In Japan melon is definitely considered one of the default flavors for candy, soda, etc, with lychee also being a contender.

I can't believe I never stopped to think about the "Sugar Plum Fairy" in the Nutcracker as akin to a "Candy Fairy" today. To me the name "Sugar Plum Fairy" still sounds way more dignified and serious haha

As a Finn, we have obviously have licorice and salmiakki, which is something that is in basically every candy bag. It is very rare to find a bag of fruit candy without either one, usually both. But quite surprisingly, grapefruit is very popular flavor in Finland. Most popular fruit flavors are raspberry/ strawberry (red) pineapple (yellow) pear (green) orange (orange, duh.) and black currant (purple).

One thing I like about your presentation is the speed. Many RU-vid videos I watch are so slow I need to put the playback speed up to 1.25. Although Simon Whistler on Today I Found Out and other related channels I sometime need to turn down to a slower speed.

One surprising thing about banana flavoured food, which used to be much more popular, even though bananas are still the #1 selling fruit, is that the banana flavour is based on an extinct species of banana. Which means that no banana you buy in the store will actually taste like a banana flavoured candy and vice versa.

Yeah, a definite war on lime has been raging in the US for the past 20 years. Nothing against green apple, but it's become downright hard to find lime flavored anything anymore unless you're ordering margaritas.

love that this showed up on my recommended, my partner's finnish so i was thinking a lot recently about candy flavors and we were talking about that, apparently in finnish candy green is typically pear flavored!!! like i'm not even a fan of pears but i still just!!! wow i think that's neat :0

It’s interesting how candy fruit flavors are different depending on which country you’re in. I’m from Japan, and the strawberry, cherry, and grape candy flavors are really different. It would be awesome to have a candy museum where visitors can sample international candy fruit flavors as well as regional specialty flavors!

I feel like raspberry could easily be in the big 5. Whether it’s blue or red, raspberry is also very iconic. Could just be because that’s my favorite flavor though, so I’m a bit biased.

The "red" flavour is usually raspberry here in Australia. Sometimes it is strawberry, but more usually that flavour is coloured a more pinkish hue (and come to think about it I think the few times I've seen red as strawberry was probably in American brands imported here). Cherry is hardly ever used in candy, other than in chocolates. Blackcurrent is a fairly common fruit flavour here, coloured a dark reddish-purple, almost black colour Other than fruits, a flavour that is still persistent in Australia from the spice/flower era is musk. Lifesavers has (or had, I don't see them around anymore) a musk option here.

grape blue razz and watermelon are definitely in there now. I'd love a sequel

Candy is so common that 50% of the time I say no to a candy offering. It definitely makes candy more excitable during the holidays.

Popularity of fruit in America is definitely a factor in what is now in the “big five” but just as important is the state of food chemistry from 1880-1950 or so, specifically food grade dye and flavorings. Citrus is easy and cheap because you just need some citric acid and yellow or green dye. Also important would be to have all the primary and secondary colors. But blue dye was expensive to synthesize and it wasn’t until the 1980s that we got a lot of it in our candy.

My personal favorite fruit flavorings from outside the US include Tamarind, Lychee, and Guava. They just have such a different flavor profile compared to what is typically eaten and really tastes delicious

this video is just making me crave some fruit gummis rn

This is a question I never thought I wanted answered

I feel like watermelon is starting to emerge as a dominant fruit flavor I see at least where I live ,South Texas, people tend to opp for watermelon flavored sour patch kids instead of the original bag, as well as hubba bubba watermelon flavored gum is popular as well among kids. As for a fruit flavored candy that isn’t common in American but is very common in Mexico is Tamarind this sort of spicy, sour, and sweet fruit that come in sort of bean pods and can either be eaten in its paste form or can be made into very delicious hard candy

I always got oranges and walnuts in my Christmas stocking (along with other things - like fancy soap), and I wondered why I ended up with groceries on Christmas. Now I'm sure it's an old tradition, from when oranges and walnuts were considered exciting sweets!

This man shows multiple candies right in a row with grape flavor and just doesn't mention it. The pluto of the fruit candy universe

I love how he used the magitek research facility theme every time something industrial appeared on screen. Great touch.