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C. Howard's Violet Candies, C. Howard Company, Inc., Choward's is the maker of C Howard's Fine Mints and Gum. The company's flagship product is its unique hard square tablet "mint" (candy) with a distinct violet aroma and taste. C. Howard's candies are also available in Lemon (flavored with natural oil of lemon), Spearmint (flavored with natural oil of spearmint), Tropical Guava, and Peppermint flavors.
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History
The company was started by Charles Howard with "Choward's Violet", a confectionery mint, in New York City during the early 1930s in a small industrial loft on Broadway. The next product was a purple colored gum tablet named "Choward's Scented Gum". The line was then expanded to include Choward's Peppermints, Spearmints, and Lemon Mints.
In popular culture
The candy is mentioned in two episodes of the AMC series Mad Men and displayed in others. In "Three Sundays", we learn it was Archibald Whitman's favorite candy. In "Far Away Places", Peggy - who has an important presentation that day - anxiously searches in vain for her pack and explains to Abe that Donald Draper once gave it to her before a presentation. She dismisses Abe's suggestion to buy a replacement, because it "wouldn't be the same". When she finds it in her desk drawer at work, she tells her SCDP colleagues, "Oh. Thank God. I couldn't take one more omen of doom." In season six, we see that she continues to keep the candy in her desk drawer, even at CGC.
It is also mentioned in Sarah Weeks' novel So B. It (2004), when Georgia gives one to Heidi. The indie pop band La Musique Populaire included their interpretation of the jingle "C. Howard's Gum Has the Power of Taste" on their CD set A Century of Song.
A reoccuring character in several Raymond Chandler novels also gets his nickname from the candy. Violets M'Gee is a homicide detective in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office: 'Well, they call him Violets M'Gee,' I said. 'On account of he chews little throat pastilles that smell of violets.'