What Flavor Is the Mystery Dum Dum?

Dum Dums date to 1924, when the Akron Candy Company of Bellevue, Ohio, first made them.¹ Spangler Candy Company bought the brand in 1953 and makes them in Bryan, Ohio.² The Mystery pop comes in a wrapper printed with question marks where the flavor name would be.

What the maker has said

Most candy mysteries are explained by rumor. This one has been explained from inside the factory, though the story has shifted over the years.

The sources are Ohio Magazine,³ TODAY⁴ and the company's own FAQ.¹

So the honest answer: a Mystery pop is often two regular flavors running together. Sometimes it is not, and Spangler will not say what it is instead.

On the day Ohio Magazine visited, the line was running cherry, with root beer next. By the account above, that changeover would make cherry and root beer Mysteries. Run order decides the blend, so the same wrapper can hold a different pairing from one bag to the next.

Why it is hard to name

A blend matches neither of its parents. You reach for one familiar flavor, find two, and settle on neither. Color usually helps you guess, and in a changeover pop the color can be mixed too.

The Mystery Airhead works on the same idea with the color left out entirely. There, the changeover story is widely repeated, but the maker has never confirmed it. Spangler's people have described theirs on the record.

How a hard candy line makes it

Dum Dums are cooked from sugar and corn syrup with flavoring, rolled into a thick rope, then cut and pressed into pops on sticks.³ In hard candy, flavor, acid and color usually go into the mass after the cook, while it is still very hot. That is why hard candy flavors are built from tough materials. See heat stability.

Switching flavors on a line like that leaves a stretch of candy that is part old, part new. You can stop and clean, scrap it, or rework it. Spangler wraps it and sells it, which keeps the line running and turns would-be rework into a product people look for.

The label makes that easy. The Original Mix carries one ingredient list for every flavor: sugar, corn syrup, citric acid, malic acid, salt, artificial flavor and colors.⁵ Spangler says Dum Dums are free of the top allergens and made on dedicated lines.¹ Any blend of any two flavors is already covered by the pack.

What it means if you make candy

Check the label first. A changeover product only works if every flavor on the line shares one ingredient statement and one allergen status. One dairy flavor, one nut flavor or one color with its own declaration, and every blend that touches it has to say so. If the flavors cannot share a label, the blend cannot be one product.

Do not promise what you cannot repeat. "Mystery" invites people to guess and compare notes. If you call it a secret flavor, they will expect the same one every time.

What Spangler has not said is what goes in the wrapper when it is not a changeover blend. The FAQ wording leaves room for almost anything.