A Squirrel Nut Caramel is a type of chewy caramel candy with pieces of peanuts mixed in. There are two variations: one has chocolate and one is caramel based.

Chocolate Squirrel caramels were the original flavor of Squirrel Brands caramels. The current ingredients are as follows: Corn Syrup

Corn syrup

Corn syrup is a food syrup, which is made from the starch of maize and contains varying amounts of maltose and higher oligosaccharides, depending on the grade. Corn syrup is used in foods to soften texture, add volume, prevent crystallization of sugar, and enhance flavor...

, Sugar, Peanuts, Condensed Milk, Chocolate, Partially hydrogenated  Soybean

Soybean oil

Soybean oil is a vegetable oil extracted from the seeds of the soybean . It is one of the most widely consumed cooking oils. As a drying oil, processed soybean oil is also used as a base for printing inks and oil paints...

 and/or Cottonseed oil

Cottonseed oil

Cottonseed oil is a cooking oil extracted from the seeds of cotton plant of various species, mainly Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium herbaceum...

, Natural & Artificial Flavor, Salt, and Soy lecithin

Lecithin

Lecithin is a generic term to designate any group of yellow-brownish fatty substances occurring in animal and plant tissues, and in egg yolk, composed of phosphoric acid, choline, fatty acids, glycerol, glycolipids, triglycerides, and phospholipids .The word lecithin was originally coined in 1847 by...

.

Squirrel Nut Zippers, the vanilla nut caramel variety, was developed in the mid 1920s in order to complement the chocolate variety. Squirrel Nut Caramels were originally made by the Squirrel Brand Company, located in the Area 4

Area 4, Cambridge

Area 4 is one of the neighborhoods of Cambridge, Massachusetts, roughly between Central Square, Inman Square, and MIT. It is bounded on the south by Massachusetts Avenue and Main Street, on the west by Prospect Street, on the north by Hampshire Street, and on the east by the Grand Junction...

 neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

, but they are now part of Necco

NECCO

Necco , pronounced "neck-o", is the acronym for the New England Confectionery Company, a manufacturer of candy. It was created in 1901 by the merger of several small confectionery companies located in the Greater Boston area; since December 2007 Necco has been owned by American Capital.The company...

. A public park named Squirrel Brand Park is now located at the former site of their factory.

External links

• Squirrel nut caramel at Necco
  NECCO
  Necco , pronounced "neck-o", is the acronym for the New England Confectionery Company, a manufacturer of candy. It was created in 1901 by the merger of several small confectionery companies located in the Greater Boston area; since December 2007 Necco has been owned by American Capital.The company...
  
  
• Filmmaker Clay Walker's Squirrel Brand Company webpage