Si Niswonger has grown up in the candy business. His family has owned Patsy’s Candies in Colorado Springs for nearly 75 years. Its history goes back even further with the original owner to the early 20th Century in Manitou. For Niswonger and his family, candy making is an art, and making many of the confections in-house from the chocolate to the popcorn to the peanut brittle is key.
Patsy’s story goes back to Ireland when an Irishman by the name of Patsy Mehaney immigrated to the United States around 1902. He settled in Terre Haute, Indiana, where he first started making popcorn from recipes he brought from Ireland. These specialties include Patsy’s chocolate popcorn and candy popcorn, which are still made today.
Mehaney came to Manitou Springs because he developed tuberculosis, and the area was known for its wellness and medicinal qualities. Mehaney ran the business until 1916 when he sold it to a local Colorado Springs family called the Osbournes, who ran the business until 1956. The Osbournes expanded the product line to include saltwater taffy, parched corn, and other items including peanut brittle.
Niswonger’s grandparents, Howard & Carolyn, had moved to Manitou from Ohio and owned a hardware business in town. They were friends with Zoe Osbourne, Patsy’s owner in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s. Osbourne wanted to pass on the candy shop to people who would take care of the business and Niswonger’s grandparents were looking for a change.
They took over the business in 1956 and it has now spanned three generations with Niswonger along with his father (Wes), brother (Mike) and sister (Christine Farrell) working at the business and making candy (and of course their famous chocolate) for new generations.
“We developed the chocolate line as well as the English toffee [through our generations], and we’ve brought the product line into what it is today.” Niswonger, 57, says that even today, they will still come up with new products because people’s tastes change. “They want something new, so we pretty much strive to be able to make wonderful products that keep people interested and have something fun and new to try.”
Creating and Improving Unique Candies and Confections at Patsy’s Candies
One unusual product, he says, that comes to mind is marzipan, which is a confection made with sugar, honey, and ground almonds. At Patsy’s, it is made from a recipe that his mom, who grew up in Belgium, knew since she was 8. After she and his dad Wes got married, his mom helped develop the recipe for the marzipan. “We have a marzipan chocolate that is in line with what Europe has.”
Niswonger says they are proud that they make their chocolate. “That’s something very special. We actually make and produce our very own chocolate. It’s our formulation and it’s basically on par with anything coming out of Europe in terms of some of the finer chocolate.”
Niswonger says it is based on a specific flavor profile to create an upscale texture, flavor, smoothness, and creaminess to it. “And the dark chocolate has a higher cacao cocoa content. So, it’s more true to what you would expect dark chocolate to be.” For some, it might be a little bit on the dark side, but, Niswonger says, it has such a wonderful taste.
Niswonger does make the point that their type of product has a wide mass appeal. “We always stay true to the principles that we all grew up with from my grandfather and grandmother and my dad and my mom. We stick with the old recipes and the old way of doing things. We don’t change stuff.”
Niswonger says they still cook in copper kettles because that’s the way it was done from the beginning. “Everything is made in small batches. We’re not cooking 700 pounds of caramel at a time. Every batch is under 100 pounds. They’re all handmade. All the ingredients, we select.”
Maintaining Quality with Tried-and-True Recipes
Many of the recipes they use go back more than 100 years and are what the original founder of the company had intended them to be. With their new confections and chocolate as well as the original recipes, Niswonger says it is about maintaining that quality and not cutting corners. He says the customers know the quality and know that it’s a family business. “When they buy the cheese corn, for example, it is the cheese corn that they know.”
For the taffy, Niswonger says that the product has had to undergo quite a few transformations over the last 75, 80 years just because people’s tastes changed. They can’t get some of the old ingredients in the way they used to make them. The equipment that wraps the candy also operates at a higher speed, so preparation methods also are taken into account. But in the end, the batches are developed and researched to keep them evolving while still maintaining the same taste and flavor expected of Patsy’s creation.
Making Memories for a New Generation
But it is also about memory. Niswonger has heard countless stories over the years about how a certain taste or smell has reminded customers of their mom’s cooking or get-togethers of long ago. But it works in a similar way for the candymaker. “For me, every batch of the saltwater taffy I make, for example, and I’ve made thousands and thousands of them at this point, but every single one of them, if I make a lemon, when I smell that beautiful lemon flavor and I pour that on the table and I see how pretty it is, it just takes me back to the first time.”
Niswonger says it is so awesome that these batches can elicit so many good memories and good things from people. “I never get tired of the smell. And I know my brother, he does all the chocolates and stuff, he says the same thing: ‘I don’t care how many batches of cream centers or turn downs I make; it never gets old because they’re such a work of art.’”
For Niswonger, it is still fun because people come in all the time and say, “Oh, gosh, I smelled your popcorn down the street [as it was] popping, and I had to come in and get some.” And for Niswonger and his family, that’s really a big and important thing.
But experimenting and trying new things in addition to those tried-and-true products and processes are what keep the business thriving. “And that’s really the fun part too because getting to create a new product and make something completely different is what we love to do.”
Niswonger says that they make huckleberry chocolate bars, for example, which was something new – “They are so wonderful and good!” He also makes cinnamon popcorn that he came up with that he says people love.
“We’ve evolved. And when we come up with an idea, it’s fun to work it through and work out all the kinks so it’s a production-worthy product, so we can bring it to market.” Personally, he says, it’s fun to come up with something new, like a new flavor of saltwater taffy, but he also understands that tastes evolve and people want something different. “So, we’ll make a new flavor of taffy, like a blue raspberry or a banana or a root beer or something that we hadn’t done before. It’s fun.”
