Behind Oregon coast saltwater taffy are sweet memories and a salty myth

Going to the edge of the Pacific Ocean is a sensory experience. The smell of seawater, the sounds of gulls and crashing waves, the warm feeling of sun on your skin – or a crisp breeze may be more likely at the Oregon coast. But what does the beach taste like?

There are plenty of seaside savory bites: Dungeness crab, clam chowder, a Pronto Pup… the list goes on.

Yet when it comes to a treat at the beach, no other candy makes so many feel nostalgia like saltwater taffy.

Taffy has been around a long while, so how did the classic candy become “salty”?

At work with a candy-making family

North Hemlock Street is Cannon Beach’s most bustling street. It’s lined with businesses that draw tourists and locals alike, including a shop with bright white and bubble gum pink stripes.

That one is Bruce’s Candy Kitchen, and Kyle Truax grew up there — truly, as the saying goes, like a kid in a candy store.

He used to live above the store as a child, and scoring fresh candy was as easy as heading downstairs. He remembers how he’d “always get the last piece of taffy out of the machine” from his uncle. Particularly exciting was the day Truax’s kindergarten class came to the family shop on a field trip.

“My grandparents started [Bruce’s] in 1963. I probably started working here [when] I was 14 going into my freshman year of high school.”

Over the last six decades, Truax’s family has owned and operated Bruce’s. His sister Kelli Truax-Taylor and her husband Brian Taylor currently own the shop, while Truax is a third-generation candy maker. In all those years, taffy-making has been a constant at Bruce’s.

These days, the shop has a menu of over three dozen kinds of taffy.

“Taffy is a flavored blob of sugar. If you don’t add enough flavor, I mean, what are we doing here?” said Taylor, the production manager and co-owner of Bruce’s.

The kitchen team says they mix up, cool, pull and roll 50,000 pounds of fresh taffy each year – that’s about the same weight as a dozen cars.

From the kitchen’s street-facing window, a whirling machine not only pulls taffy, but pulls people in.

Truax calls it the “best show in town.”

“There’s this magic piece here where we can erase all of our worries and just focus on this machine here and watch it work,” said Taylor.

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Chew on this piece of history

Sugar was rare until around the 1800s, when colonial sugar plantations in the Caribbean flooded the global market.

And that sugar rush led to all kinds of sweet treats, including mass production of taffy. It is essentially molten sugar that’s pulled after it cools to create its chewy texture.

Back in the day, taffy pulls were actually popular social events in the U.S. A host would make taffy and then the butter would come out for guests to slather on their hands. Pairs of pullers would stretch the taffy, fold it back together and repeat until it was ready to eat.

So, what’s the deal with saltwater taffy? Its birthplace was Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1883.

During that year, a candy store on the city’s boardwalk flooded, and seawater soaked all of the shop’s taffy. Afterward, the shop owner joked that he had a new candy to sell: “salt water taffy.”

The name stuck, and the so-called salty treat has since become a classic coastal indulgence, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Saltwater taffy is taffy — plus beachy branding.

“There’s not really saltwater in it, but it’s kind of like, hey, it’s close to the beach, you know, let’s go get some saltwater taffy” Truax said with a laugh.

“I have a customer up in Alaska, and he calls his taffy ‘glacier water’ taffy,” Taylor said.

A treat that spans generations

Bruce’s is just one of several candy shops that dot the Oregon coast.

Saltwater taffy wasn’t invented in the state. It isn’t made with seawater. But for generations of kids – and kids at heart – taffy has been one of the signature tastes of the Oregon coast.

“I’ve watched a lot of kids grow up over the last 20 years,” Taylor recalled. “Mom and dad bring their kids in, and now grandma and grandpa bring the grandkids in.”

“People that come back year after year, it’s time travel.”

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OPB’s Jenn Chávez contributed to this story.

For more about what it’s like to work as a taffy maker, and answers to questions from our audience, listen to OPB’s “At Work With” story about the family of candy makers at Bruce’s Candy Kitchen using the audio player at the top of this page. To hear more “At Work With” interviews and other stories about the Pacific Northwest, subscribe to OPB’s weekly podcast “The Evergreen.”