Made in the Hudson Valley: Rockland County man celebrates 9 years of making traditional candy canes at Lucas Candies
Loucas is the fourth generation in his family to own the shop.
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The smell of peppermint fills the air inside Lucas Candies, where owner Nick Loucas and his baking partner Debbie Bertrand are hard at work on a beloved Christmas tradition.
"We do live candy cane shows every weekend in December," Loucas explained. "That's been revolutionizing Christmas."
Loucas is the fourth generation in his family to own the shop. He started the holiday tradition nearly a decade ago to celebrate the shop's 120th anniversary.
"The business has been very family-oriented forever," he explained. "It makes you feel really proud to be a part of such a long legacy...I started working here when I was about 10 years old. My parents showed me how to do everything...I had made candy canes when I was a kid, and we hadn't really done them in a long time. So, my partner at the time said, 'Let's do something unique.' So we decided on candy canes, and we've been doing them every weekend since."
Following in his family members' footsteps, Loucas made sure his candy canes were made the traditional way.
"We do it all by hand," he explained. "It starts out with really simple ingredients. It's sugar, corn, syrup and water. We cook the sugar to 315 degrees, and when it's ready, it's poured on a cooling table where we add peppermint and red coloring into two separate parts. We cool them and mix them to get them to the right consistency. When it's ready, the two parts are brought back together, and the candy is pulled, stretched and shaped into candy canes."
Those little candy cane shows have become a holiday tradition for many of Loucas' customers.
"It's pretty amazing," he said. "Every show, we ask who's new, and we get a bunch of hands raised. Then, we [ask] who has been here before, and we get even more [hands raised]...There are families that have now been coming every year, and they're always in awe because it's a really cool process. The new people are just shocked that this molten sugar ends up looking like this traditional candy cane that they've grown up seeing, but never realized how much work and how it is to do it."
With nearly a decade of smiles and astonishment, Loucas is proud to make some Christmas magic for families from all over.
"Christmas is a really special time for a lot of people, so to be part of how they celebrate Christmas each year is a great feeling," he said. "It brings a lot of joy to us and to the community."
Lucas Candies is located at 6 Main St. in Haverstraw. Candy cane shows are every Saturday and Sunday in December until Christmas. Saturday shows are at noon and 3 p.m., while Sunday shows are at 1 p.m. All shows are free. No reservations are needed.
