How drop is made

Ingredients

Appearently no official definition of drop exists. Every product of no matter what composition could legally be called drop. But the drop-eaters would never accept fake products. Real drop consists of;

• extracts of liquorice plant roots
• arabic gom
• sugar
• salmiac salts
• colorants, odorants, flavourants

The liquorice plant

The liquorice plant mainly grows in subtropic climats in regions of Spain, Italy, Greece, The Caucasus, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Chine. Humid river sides are the optimal locations.

After 4 years the roots which can be up to 4 meters long are harvested. They are carefully digged up and cut-off. Care is taken to leave enough roots to the plant so it will continue to grow and allow harvesting during next years also.

Production

The cut-off roots are dried, cleaned, cut into smaller pieces, and made into a pulp. The pulp is concentrated and formed into large blocks, 'block-drop'.

Sugar, arabic gom and zetmeel are cooked, and the block-drop plus the salmiac salts are added. The different ingredients will influence the structure of the drop and make it soft or hard. Eventually also other ingriedients are added to influence the color or flavour. Honey, menthol, anise or eucaliptus are some examples of flavours.

Finally the mixture is injection-moulded into the final drop-shape. Many different shapes are developped, and the real drop-eater will recognise immediately his favourite taste from it's shape.