Mackintosh's Toffee is a

sweet Sweetness is a basic taste most commonly perceived when eating foods rich in sugars. Sweet tastes are generally regarded as pleasurable. In addition to sugars like sucrose, many other chemical compounds are sweet, including aldehydes, ketones ...

created by Mackintosh Company. John Mackintosh opened up his sweets shop in Halifax,

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in 1890, and the idea for Mackintosh's Toffee, not too hard and not too soft, came soon after. In 1969, Mackintosh's merged with rival Rowntree to form

Rowntree Mackintosh Rowntree Mackintosh Confectionery was a British company formed by the merger of Rowntree's and John Mackintosh Co. The company was famous for making chocolate brands, such as Kit Kat, Aero and Quality Street. It was purchased by Nestlé in 19 ...

, which merged with Nestlé in 1988. The product is often credited with being over 100 years old. The toffee is sold in bags containing a random assortment of individual wrapped flavoured toffees. The flavours are (followed by wrapping colour): Malt (Blue), Harrogate (Yellow), Mint (Green), Egg & Cream (Orange), Coconut (Pink), and Toffee (Maroon). The maroon-wrapped toffees do not display a flavour on the wrapper. The product's subtitle is "Toffee De Luxe" and its motto is "a tradition worth sharing". The flavour ''Harrogate'' was originally developed by confectioners in the

spa town A spa town is a resort town based on a mineral spa (a developed mineral spring). Patrons visit spas to "take the waters" for their purported health benefits. Thomas Guidott set up a medical practice in the English town of Bath in 1668. H ...

Harrogate Harrogate ( ) is a spa town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist destination and its visitor at ...

to remove the pungent taste of the town's spa waters.

Availability

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

had its own version of Mackintosh's Toffee. Unlike the British versions, it was a hard candy which, for most of its history, was sold as a single rectangular bar in a tartan box. More recently (circa 2008) the Canadian product is individually wrapped and manufactured in

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...

, and licensed for sale in Canada by Nestlé Canada. However, the wrapped version is soft and more akin to a caramel. Recently (2013) Nestlé Canada has been distributing an apparent recreation of the hard Mack bar, though thinner and wrapped in foil. It contains sweetened condensed milk as a main flavouring and has less of the creamy butter flavour of the original Canadian Mack. Nestlé does not distribute the toffees in the US, but it may be ordered online for delivery or found in specialty candy shops. They were also manufactured and sold in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

by Nestlé New Zealand Limited under the "Allen's" Confectionery range, but are now manufactured by RJ's of Levin after Nestlé sold off its NZ confectionery brands in 2018.Allen's Confectionery
Stuff The New Zealand-manufactured RJ's product is also distributed in Australia.

References

External links

* Products introduced in 1890 Brand name confectionery Nestlé brands Yorkshire cuisine Toffee {{confectionery-stub