Sugarfina's Luxury Candystore

My father would go on business trips to London and come back with an amazing array of hard candy from Harrod's. And my mother would come back from trips home to Holland with salty dark black licorice that my friends would try and declare inedible. 

So it's always a bit disappointing to go to candy stores in America, with an abundance of cheap candy in strangely shaped containers, over-saturated fake cherry-flavored candy, and stale salt water taffy. You're lucky if you can find some violet Chowards.

In contrast, the new Beverly-Hills based (had to be, right?) luxury candy store Sugarfina is a dream.  They don't have old favorites, but they do have a serious and fresh collection of world-class candy (at, I fear, luxury prices).

My favorites are these rose-water Italian hard candies:

And their licorice cubes are the best I've ever tasted:

Overall, chocolates are not their strong suit and I was a little disappointed by their malt balls, but they do have very good kir cordials and single-malt whisky cordials, and their Greek chocolate-covered kumquats and cherries were fun. 

And their fruttini (tiny pate de fruit)? Excellent.