Cough Drop Nostalgia - 3:07PM, 2006/05/27
I managed to catch Bob’s cold on Tuesday evening. Fortunately for me, my work schedule this week was such that I’ve had enough time to sleep and start to recuperate. Combined with the long weekend, I should recover quickly.
But whenever I have a cold, I always start to think about the cough drops we used to get when I was little. Next to useless, we pretty much looked upon them as candy and ate them as such. Not like these serious cough drops they sell now — the Robitussin ones are very clearly cough syrup (and taste like it) and also actually have an anaesthetic ingredient that numbs your mouth!
When I was little, though, aside from Halls, which was rejected as being mediciney, there were two main brands of cough drops. These were found up near the checkout at the drug store, mixed in with the breath mints, the gum, and the candy bars.
Pine Bros. was my favorite. I did not like the honey flavor, but the cherry was great. These were elliptical in shape, and as cough drops, had the flavor, consistency and effectiveness of Swedish Fish. There were 15 in each box, making them an expensive treat, because they were always eaten very quickly.
Smith Bros. was okay, but I only ever got those when for some reason the Pine Bros. was out of stock. These were smaller, about the size of M&M’s, and were hard candies virtually indistinguishable from cherry Lifesavers aside from the lack of hole in the middle. At that time in my life, I was quite familiar with Lifesavers, but not with Swedish fish, so these were not such a novelty.