SUDBURY — Massachusetts doesn’t have an official state candy bar. If it did, that title should go to the Sky Bar.
There’s no candy bar like it. It’s a unique, multi-flavored chocolate bar with four different fillings (fudge, vanilla, caramel, peanut) and a cult following.
It’s been produced in Massachusetts for the last 87 years, making it older than the Curse of the Bambino that haunted the Boston Red Sox from 1919 until 2004.
But it wasn’t too long ago that the Sky Bar was stricken with its own misfortune: its manufacturer shut down.
Fortunately for the Sky Bar, and mouths around the state, it was saved from extinction in 2018. That’s when Duck Soup, a little general store in Sudbury, stepped in to keep it alive.
So, yes, you can still buy Sky Bars today. But it needed a miracle to make it this far.
The year the Sky Bar nearly fell
For 80 years, the Sky Bar was produced by the Revere-based candy company Necco (New England Confectionary Co.). They’re the folks famous for Necco Wafers, which date back to 1847. Necco also made Mary Janes, the Clark Bar and Sweethearts, the candy hearts you see around Valentine’s Day.
The Sky Bar was more of a regional favorite. Since debuting in 1938, it kept a strong fanbase throughout the state.
But it’s hard out there for a classic candy company. The retro flair of the Sky Bar was in for a tough fight against the Snickers’ and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups of the world.
In 2018, Necco went out of business and sold all of its assets. Notable brands like Necco Wafers, Clark Bar and Sweethearts were scooped up by other candy companies.
But after no buyer emerged for the Sky Bar, the Mass favorite seemed destined to join Jordan Marsh and Filene’s Basement in the realms of Massachusetts nostalgia.
Louise Mawhinney, the owner of Duck Soup, says she couldn’t let that happen.
Mawhinney, who moved over from Scotland in the ’80s, has experience in keeping beloved Massachusetts businesses open — including Duck Soup itself.
The Sudbury general store opened back in 1971. When the owners were ready to retire in 2014, Mawhinney stepped in to take over the store and keep it running.
“It’s such a beloved institution. You can’t let this happen,” she says were her thoughts at the time. “And no regrets whatsoever.”
It’s worked pretty well. Mawhinney has added alcohol sales, toys and cooking classes to what was already a wide array of offerings.
So, Mawhinney took a risk and went all-in on the Sky Bar, securing the brand and recipes in an online auction.
Vintage candies have always been always been in the store’s wheelhouse. But making them? That was something else entirely.
What Mawhinney acquired was essentially some paperwork that allowed her to sell Sky Bars. Willy Wonka wasn’t walking through that door to give her the keys to a chocolate. factory.
Instead, she needed to find a manufacturing space — and a way to actually make the bars.
For the space, Mawhinney explored multiple options in nearby towns. But when the space next to Duck Soup opened up, she jumped at the opportunity to expand. Now, the back right corner of the store has been turned into a candy bar factory.
The actual production was another issue. Mawhinney wasn’t going to find any “Sky Bar-making machines” on eBay.
Instead, she got in touch with Jeff Green, a former Necco vice president of research and development, who helped design a custom machine for them.
Duck Soup came up with a simple setup to make the bars. They cook up the separate fillings in-house using the original Necco recipes and add them to four separate canisters.
The custom machine then injects the different fillings and chocolates into the molds in one smooth shot. The bars then head down the line where they’re shaken until smooth.
After that, it’s time for the bars to go into cold storage for a couple of hours to harden up.
Mawhinney says Duck Soup makes about 3,000 bars per run. You can buy the buys in Duck Soup’s shop and on their website.
You can also find Sky Bars at select local grocery stores and businesses across the Northeast. You can use the Sky Bar store locater to see if there’s a retailer near you.
The Sky Bar today: Made with the ‘good stuff’
The Sky Bar you can buy today may or may not taste like the candy bar you remember. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. There’s a good chance it tastes better.
Part of Mawhinney’s deal to buy Sky Bar involved buying all of Necco’s recipes, which she says evolved throughout the years.
Mawhinney says Necco’s formulas were “dumbed down towards the end to make it less expensive” to produce the bars. That meant lower-quality chocolate and fillings.
Now that she’s running the show, Mawhinney is adamant about using the “good stuff.”
That starts with the chocolate. She now uses Callebaut, a high-quality Belgian chocolate for the bars. Duck Soup even saves the extra chocolate run-off to sell as plain chocolate bars.
Then there are the fillings, which have evolved over the years. That includes going back to the “original” recipes.
Among them are a luxurious caramel, satisfying peanut butter and a fudge that’s sweet and velvet-like.
Perhaps the filling that’s changed the most is the vanilla section. At the end of the Necco run, the vanilla section was an industrially whitened sugar paste.
When the Sky Bar first returned, the vanilla section was a little chalky. Now, it’s a smooth and beautifully flavored creme. It’s a murky off-white color, like someone actually added vanilla to a sweet creme.
Forget your rose-colored glasses. The Sky Bar is better than ever. The only glass you should be looking through is the one at the back of Duck Soup where you can watch the bars being made.
There’s a Sky Bar gift shop?
In addition to being a general store and chocolate factory, Duck Soup also acts as a Sky Bar gift shop.
If you turn right after walking into Duck Soup’s main entrance, you’ll find the section of the store devoted to the Sky Bar.
There, you’ll find the bars for sale — along with discounted broken bars. You can also find a selection of Sky Bar merch, including T-shirts, hats, sweatshirts and mugs.
You can also find a few relics from throughout the Sky Bar’s history.
Above the door to the production facility, you can see one of the original Sky Bar molds from 1938.
Nearby is a portrait of Joseph Cangemi, who Mawhinney credits as the inventor of the Sky Bar.
Behind the cashier, Duck Soup also has some vintage Necco advertisements heralding the wonders of the Sky Bar and their famous wafers.
Even under the Necco umbrella, the Sky Bar was never the most prominent product. But it was something that was quintessential Massachusetts.
It never had quite the reach of Boston Cream Pie, the chocolate chip cookie or Marshmallow Fluff. But in terms of candy bars with roots in the Bay State, its cult following has a legacy.
The Sky Bar has a strong case for the title of the official candy bar of Massachusetts.
There isn’t a ton of competition.
The Clark Bar was also made by Necco for a while. But it originated in Pennsylvania.
The biggest challenger for the title is the Charleston Chew, which was invented by the Fox-Cross Candy Company in Cambridge in 1922.
It has a strong national brand. But it’s long since drifted away from its Massachusetts ties. In 1980, the company and Charleston Chew brand sold to Nabisco. It’s changed hands a few times since then.
The Charleston Chew is now made by Tootsie Roll, which produces most of its candy in Chicago.
So if you want a candy bar that was created in Massachusetts and is still made in Massachusetts, there’s nothing quite like the Sky Bar.
