Edinburgh Rock

Like most shopkeepers in Lowland Scotland in the nineteenth century, Alex Ferguson boils pans of sugar in his Edinburgh back shop to make a range of popular sweeties. It is the heyday of sugar imports from the West Indies and every town has its favourite range of sweeties. Some are also made by street hawkers and travelling packmen. Some get songs written about them:

Sadly, no-one gets the recipe for Robert Coltart's aniseed flavoured candy – sold around the Borders town of Melrose – before he dies, much lamented, in 1890. But not so with Ferguson’s sweetie specialities.