Liquorice wheels are one of those sweets everyone can picture: a flat black spiral, usually with a soft coloured centre, sold loose by weight in traditional sweet shops. The shape isn't an accident, and neither is where liquorice sweets come from in the first place.
Yorkshire's liquorice trade
Liquorice root doesn't grow wild in Britain, but it was cultivated for centuries around Pontefract in West Yorkshire, where the soil suited it particularly well. By the 1700s, liquorice growing in England was concentrated almost entirely around Pontefract, with a smaller pocket near Godalming in Surrey. Local tradition credits a Pontefract apothecary named George Dunhill with the idea of adding sugar to the local liquorice root paste, turning a medicinal remedy into a sweet, sometime in the closing decades of the eighteenth century. The result became known as Pontefract cakes, each one stamped with an image of the town's castle.
Why a wheel, not a cake
Pontefract cakes are pressed discs of pure liquorice, stamped and simple. Liquorice wheels are a different, later idea. Rather than pressing liquorice into a lozenge, a manufacturer rolls a flat ribbon of liquorice into a tight spiral, usually wound around a small jelly button at the centre, traditionally called a spog. Seen from above, the finished sweet looks like a coiled rope, and the name settled on \"wheel\" for the obvious match to a spinning firework wheel: the Catherine wheel, named after Saint Catherine of Alexandria.
A pocket-money sweet, not a pharmacy product
This is the real difference between the two liquorice traditions. Pontefract cakes came out of an apothecary's shop and stayed close to their roots as a liquorice remedy for generations. Liquorice wheels belong to the twentieth-century world of the traditional sweet shop counter: sold loose by weight alongside cola bottles and aniseed balls, aimed squarely at pocket money rather than digestion. They sit in the same family of novelty liquorice shapes as bootlaces, torpedoes and allsorts.
Still a jar-shop favourite
Despite decades of change in the sweets aisle, liquorice wheels haven't disappeared. They've stayed a fixture of the pick-and-mix counter and the traditional sweet jar, prized for the contrast between the firm liquorice ribbon and the soft jelly centre. Our Liquorice collection carries them alongside other classic liquorice formats, and they turn up regularly in our Retro Sweets and Pocket Money Sweets ranges too.
Frequently asked questions
Why are they called liquorice wheels?
The name comes from their spiral shape, which resembles a Catherine wheel firework. They're made by coiling a ribbon of liquorice into a flat spiral, usually around a soft jelly centre.
What's the difference between liquorice wheels and Pontefract cakes?
Pontefract cakes are stamped discs of pure liquorice dating to Yorkshire in the late 1700s. Wheels are a pinwheel-shaped ribbon of liquorice around a jelly centre, made for the sweet shop counter rather than the apothecary trade.
Are liquorice wheels vegan?
It depends on the centre. The liquorice itself is usually vegan, but the jelly spog often contains gelatine, so check individual products.