More from the sugar frontier: The Ear thinks that Charles Dickens, and even Ebenezer Scrooge, would chuckle over a holiday confection, “Bah! Humbug,” pictured above, English-style peppermint candies made by Bruce’s Candy Kitchen in Cannon Beach.

Here’s how the candies came to the coast: Around 35 years ago, an English woman named Vicky Hawkins, editor of the Cannon Beach Gazette, asked Bruce Haskell, owner and candy maker of Bruce’s Candy Kitchen, if he could help her recreate a candy she remembered from her childhood holidays in England. After several attempts, he succeeded.

The candies are still made the old-fashioned way, according to Brian Taylor, current manager/candymaker. The candy starts as liquid and then becomes 25-lb. semi-solid batches that are hand-pulled until they are hard enough to run through a 100-year-old machine that cuts them into pieces.

So if you have a peppermint candy sweet tooth, you can give it the “Bah! Humbug” treatment, available at Bruce’s.