Here’s a short, engaging story about the origins of Twizzlers. In the small town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the year 1845, a young confectioner named David Y. S. Hostetter had a problem. He made fine candles from beeswax and sweet, hard candies from boiled sugar, but he dreamed of something more—a candy that stretched, bent, and wiggled. Something that was equal parts chew and smile.
For decades, Hostetter’s small shop sold Twizzlers to local farmers and children. But in 1905, another Lancaster candy maker—a shrewd businessman named Sam Born—took notice. Born had emigrated from France with a love for machines that made candy faster and better. He bought Hostetter’s recipe, tweaked it, and automated the twisting process. His company, Born & Company (later renamed Just Born ), turned Twizzlers from a local treat into a national sensation. who made twizzlers
So, while David Hostetter twisted the very first Twizzler in a tiny Pennsylvania kitchen, it was Sam Born who twisted the world’s taste buds. And to this day, every red, cherry-flavored spiral carries a little bit of both their stories: a dreamer’s twist and a maker’s machine. Here’s a short, engaging story about the origins
By the 1950s, Twizzlers were everywhere: movie theaters, lunchboxes, and gas stations. And in 1977, NASA even sent Twizzlers into space aboard the Space Shuttle Enterprise test flights—because what astronaut doesn’t need a zero-gravity licorice twist? Hostetter had a problem
One rainy autumn evening, while watching his wife roll dough for pie crusts, an idea sparked. What if candy could be rolled like dough, then twisted into a corkscrew shape? He rushed to his kitchen workshop, boiled a batch of strawberry-flavored syrup, and poured it onto a cool marble slab. As it thickened, he pulled it, stretched it, and—using a hand-cranked press he’d rigged from a cider mill—forced the warm, red taffy through a metal plate with two small holes.
He called his creation “Twizzlers,” a playful name that suggested both the twist and the cheerful, tongue-twisting fun of eating them.