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Bonds of London Barley Sugar - 120g
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Original price
$5.99
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Original price
$5.99
Original price
$5.99
$5.99
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$5.99
Current price
$5.99
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Availability:
In stock — ships from Canada
Shipped from CanadaFast & reliable delivery
Authentic British FoodsImported from the UK
Rated 4.9/5From 449 reviews
About Bonds of London Barley Sugar
About Bonds of London Barley Sugar
Barley sugar is one of those British sweets that has been around so long it barely needs to explain itself. Bonds of London Barley Sugar is the classic hard-boiled sweet that generations of people in the UK will remember from jars on shop counters, paper bags passed around in the back seat, or the particular satisfaction of one rattling around at the bottom of a handbag.
This is a 120g bag of Bonds of London Barley Sugar, a traditional British confectionery from one of the UK's long-established sweet makers. Barley sugar sweets are hard-boiled, amber-coloured, and carry that familiar lightly honeyed, subtly buttery flavour that is entirely its own thing. They are the sort of sweet that people who grew up in Britain have a very specific and unwavering opinion about.
For British expats in Canada, finding the real version of something like this usually involves either a very lucky trip to a vague import shelf or waiting for someone to bring it over in their luggage. The Great British Shop imports Bonds of London Barley Sugar directly from the UK, so neither of those things is necessary.
Bonds of London have been making sweets in Britain for well over a century, and barley sugar is exactly the kind of old-fashioned hard sweet that suits them. If you have not had one since you left the UK, the taste is exactly as you remember it, which is either reassuring or slightly alarming depending on how long ago that was.
Frequently asked questions about Bonds of London Barley Sugar
Q: What does Bonds of London Barley Sugar taste like?
A: Barley sugar is one of those old-fashioned British sweets that is genuinely hard to pin down if you have never had one. It is a hard-boiled sweet with a clean, smooth sweetness and a slightly amber quality that feels distinctly old-school rather than modern. The taste is familiar to anyone who grew up with them, the kind of thing that sits in a glass jar on a counter and gets quietly eaten one after another without much ceremony.
Q: Is Bonds of London Barley Sugar the UK version?
A: Yes, this is the UK product, imported from the United Kingdom. Bonds of London is a long-established British confectionery brand, and this 120g bag is the same barley sugar people remember from British sweetshops and corner newsagents. For British expats in Canada, that matters, because barley sugar is a specifically British sweet with a particular character that is not really replicated here.
Q: What is the nostalgic appeal of barley sugar sweets for British people in Canada?
A: Barley sugar sits in a particular corner of British sweet memory, the kind of thing found in a grandparent's coat pocket or a glass jar at the post office counter. It is not flashy, it does not come in twelve flavours, and that is rather the point. For British people in Canada, it is one of those small, specific things that is oddly difficult to replace, which is why it tends to end up in a British grocery order alongside things people were already buying.
More about Bonds of London Barley Sugar
Barley sugar sits in a specific corner of British confectionery, somewhere between boiled sweets and old-fashioned penny sweets, with a character that sets it apart from anything fruit-flavoured or chewy. It is a category with deep roots in British sweet-making, and Bonds of London is one of the names most closely associated with keeping it going in its traditional hard-boiled form.
For British expats in Canada, barley sugar is the kind of thing that does not have a straightforward local substitute. It is not that nothing else will do in a pinch; it is that the specific memory attached to it is tied to this particular sweet, and that memory is not transferable. People in Brampton, Edmonton and Toronto have been known to search specifically for Bonds barley sugar rather than just "British sweets," which tells you something about how particular the craving tends to be.
The 120g bag is a sensible size, easy to keep in a desk drawer, a coat pocket or a kitchen cupboard without any fuss. Barley sugar stores well at room temperature and does not need anything from you except a cool, dry spot away from direct heat.
Bonds of London produces a range of traditional British sweets worth knowing about. If barley sugar is the starting point, the wider Bonds range in Canada covers a good spread of the classics, and the broader British sweets section has plenty of company for it.
The bag ships from within Canada, so whether it is heading to Halifax or somewhere further west, it arrives without the delays and customs uncertainty of an overseas parcel, which for something this straightforward seems entirely right.
Additional Information
Packaging Accuracy. We keep product information as accurate and up to date as possible. Manufacturers sometimes change packaging, ingredients, nutritional information, allergen advice, pack sizes or branding without notice, so the product you receive may look slightly different from the images shown. If you have a question about ingredients or allergens before ordering, please get in touch and we will gladly check for you.
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A handy shortcut to the British favourites flying out the door.
Excellent assortment of UK goods. Good pricing. Fast and reasonably priced shipping. Friendly service.
I shall be back! Especially for the McVities milk chocolate caramel digestives!
Every family car had a bag of these somewhere, rattling about with the road atlas and a parking ticket nobody paid. Barley sugar was what got handed back on a long drive, one at a time, with strict instructions to make it last. You never did. The name on this bag is Bonds of London, one of the old names in British sweets, and spotting it on a shelf in Canada is like hearing your nan's voice in a supermarket queue. You turn round. Of course you do.
Read the full story
Old sweets, new owners
When it changed hands in April 2016, the trade press described Bonds of London as one of the UK's oldest sweet businesses. The buyer was Innovative Bites, a US-foods wholesaler founded in 2008 by Vishal Madhu, and it was a multimillion-pound deal. That is a lot of quarters from the sweet shop. Managing director Philip Courtenay-Luck stayed on with the business, which is the sort of detail you want when the thing changing hands is a sweet jar people have trusted for years.
Jars, bags and a bigger appetite
Vishal Madhu said Bonds of London has historically been known for traditional British sweets such as pick'n'mix jars and hanging bags. That is the whole wall of a corner shop, more or less. A year after buying Bonds, Innovative Bites went on to acquire pick'n'mix wholesaler Hancocks Cash & Carry in a deal worth about £100m. So somebody out there is taking pick'n'mix very seriously. As they should.
Top shelf, behind the counter
The best-known Bonds jars are retro classics such as sherbet lemons and wine gums, the ones that lived on the top shelf and came down to be weighed out while you hopped from foot to foot. Barley sugar sits comfortably in that company. It is the sweet your grandad kept in his coat pocket, slightly fluffy, offered with total confidence. This one comes in a proper bag. No fluff.
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