Hebert Candies
I'm dressed kind of like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory today because I absolutely love that movie, and like the flick, at Hebert's in Shrewsbury, the food and fun come to life.
Before there was a Mass Pike, everyone took Route 20 to go into Boston. And in 1946, Hebert’s became the first roadside confectioner in the United States. This building was built 100 years ago to be a summer mansion, and when you walk in, you can sort of tell this was not built as a store. Kind of feels like you're in your rich uncle's crazy home. There are just shelves and bowls and baskets of candy everywhere you look.
Paul Smith is the Chief Operating Officer, but he also has a job that I think all of us envy. He is the chief candy taster. “I have the sweetest job in the world. If you have a sweet tooth, this is the place you want to be because you're going to have a great time here.” There are not that many places in Massachusetts that make their own candy on site, and this is the only one I can think of that has a massive window. You can see the candy making from outside the store and inside the store. And to me, it is like candy theater. “So when you walk into the production area, the smell is amazing, and it's different every day. If they're making vanilla caramels, you get this wonderful aroma of fresh vanilla caramel and it just makes your mouth water.
Anything chocolate is made here at the Candy Mansion.” The flagship item here is the Geneva, a tasty, bite-sized piece of chocolate. You can get it in white milk or dark. You can also get some almond mixed in to give a little crunch against the softness of that delicious chocolate. I'm a milk chocolate guy. Back in the 40s, Mr. Hebert went to Europe and noticed they were using white chocolate as a coating on some candy. He came back to America and started making white chocolate as its own standalone item, the first one in the country to do it, and it's still a specialty of the house. I love that vanilla smell and taste. “So our white chocolate recipe has not changed since it was pioneered here by Frederick Hebert. The white chocolate is so silky smooth. It is the most delicious white chocolate you will have in this entire world.”
If you like chocolate bars. Hebert’s makes about 30 different kinds, including the s'mores galore. How tasty does that sound? “So Hebert has over 30 different flavors of chocolate bars, from a milk plain chocolate bar to a mainstay peanut butter chocolate bar, to some unique ones like a churro crisp or a raspberry burst. The Hebert milk chocolate brings me back to my childhood, because I've been eating Hebert chocolate my entire life. So it brings me back to the campfires when I was a kid or sharing a chocolate bar with my grandmother, because my grandmother used to take me here when I was little.”
Fudge is really a New England delicacy, and here it is a specialty. Even in a candy store, it stands out as being sweet and buttery. They make it the old-fashioned way in the mixer, then they have to let it cool down. So it's a full two-day process, but believe me, it pays off in terms of flavor. It's like eating a steak if a steak was made of sugar and butter.
Hebert’s does a big selection of chocolate-covered items, including my favorite, the chocolate-covered pretzel. It is soft, it is crunchy, it is sweet, it is salty. And here I'm in heaven, because they do eight flavors of the chocolate-covered pretzel. “We can cover pretty much anything in chocolate, whether it's a chocolate-covered graham cracker or a chocolate-covered cookie or a chocolate-covered pretzel, chocolate-covered caramel. We enrobe anything in chocolate.”
Around Easter, they make a two-pound chocolate bunny. Now it's big bucks, but if you want to walk into a party and be a complete rock star, I say go ahead and get one. I mean, watch them making and painting and preparing this thing. They're like Picassos of chocolate. “So we mold chocolate in many different forms depending on the holidays… and we have many different Easter Bunnies in chocolate forms, including a three-foot-tall bunny that takes two chocolatiers eight hours to make the bunny from start to finish. And once it's done, it's a big, hollow bunny. The bunny has a nice backpack basket on its back, and we hand-put truffles in the baskets to make it a masterpiece.”
If you're not a chocolate freak, Hebert's has all kinds of items that aren't chocolate, from gummies to circus peanuts and edible rings. You can walk through our rooms and rooms of candy and never run out of things to see and try.” “Not only do we sell candy, we have an ice cream parlor here inside, and all summer long, we have an ice cream window.” “So you can have sweets galore, and on a nice, warm day, you can sit down and enjoy an ice cream.” “This place is amazing. This place is fantastic. You do not want to drive by the Hebert Candy Mansion without stopping in.”
