Shane Confectionery Kicks Off Spooky Season With Haunted Chocolates
Philly ghost stories are getting transformed into gourmet treats at one of America’s oldest candy shops.
The Haunted Philadelphia chocolate assortment at Shane Confectionery / Courtesy of Shane Confectionery
Listen to the audio edition here:
With the Halloween season now fully underway, the creepy cats over at Shane Confectionery are releasing another limited-edition, Halloween box of seasonally-themed candies. Last year, they did a whole thing based around “the folklore, landscape and history” of the Pine Barrens, featuring pine truffles, sassafras sugar cookies, and a bonbon inspired by everyone’s favorite cryptid, the Jersey Devil. This year, they’re bringing it back home with a box called Haunted Philadelphia, which is based on local paranormal experiences and some favorite legends. And they’ve spent months getting it ready.
Look, any city that’s been around as long as Philadelphia is bound to have a few ghosts knocking around. There are some well-known local legends, like the ghost of the bride who burned to death at City Tavern, or the faceless man from Fort Mifflin. But the crew from Shane also wanted to find some lesser-known stories to celebrate (in confectionery form), so early in the year they put out a call for local folks with some serious, Poltergeist-level ghost stories they wanted to get off their chest. And Philly, as always, delivered.
So now we have a box of 14 treats — one pair each for seven different stories, which will all be collected in a zine included with the box. Like last year, they’re trying to keep things mysterious by staying mum on the details of what ghost stories are being used, but I can tell you that their candy interpretations include everything from a black cherry heart and a pecan and mango cat’s eye to a beer truffle made with Founders KBS stout, a vanilla fondant fire extinguisher and a sparkling champagne pâte de fruit with popping sugar “in honor of a phantom party.” Along with the chocolates and their stories, each box also contains a beeswax ghost candle made by Philadelphia Bee Co. and the suggestion from Shane is to gather some friends, turn off all the lights, light the candle, and share the candies while reading the stories that inspired them.
This year’s box will run you $65. Pre-orders run between now and October 8th, with pickups and delivery available between then and October 20th. You can order yours here. There will also be limited number of boxes available for in-store purchase, but odds are they’re going to go very fast.
Oh, and if you happen to have a ghost story of your own you’d like to share, Shane is leaving the submission form open on their site in hopes of gathering more tales of Haunted Philadelphia for next year’s box.
