Eight Dollars a Stick

When Chupa Chups released those tongue-painter lollipops, we treated them like contraband. The whole point was the transformation—eat one, stick out your tongue, watch someone recoil. Blue, green, black. The flavor was always secondary. Apple. Strawberry. Cola. Fine.

Nobody back then was thinking: what if a lollipop tasted like pizza? Or beer? Or breast milk? The answer, in case you were wondering, is that someone in San Francisco eventually did think exactly that. Lollyphile, operating out of San Francisco and Austin, makes lollipops in flavors that read less like a candy menu and more like a dare: chocolate bacon, cornflakes, green tea, sriracha, wasabi, mojito. They sell something called "mermaid" and something called "party girl," which I choose not to investigate too closely.

Eight dollars a pop, more or less. The breast milk one is the obvious conversation piece, but I think the sriracha is the genuinely deranged choice—that particular heat does not belong in a format where you’re supposed to lick slowly and contemplate. The whole thing is stupid and I want to try all of them. Some things don’t need a deeper explanation than that.