A pear drop is a British boiled sweet made from

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...

and flavourings. "Old-fashioned" pear drops are a combination of half pink and half yellow in a

pear Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in late summer into mid-autumn. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus ''Pyrus'' , in the Family (biology), family Rosaceae, bearing the Pome, po ...

-shaped drop about the size of a thumbnail, although they are more commonly found in packets containing separate yellow drops and pink drops in roughly equal proportions ("original"). The artificial flavours isoamyl acetate and

ethyl acetate Ethyl acetate commonly abbreviated EtOAc, ETAC or EA) is the organic compound with the formula , simplified to . This flammable, colorless liquid has a characteristic sweet smell (similar to pear drops) and is used in glues, nail polish removers, ...

are responsible for the characteristic flavour of pear drops: the former confers a banana flavour, the latter a pear flavour. Both

esters In chemistry, an ester is a chemical compound, compound derived from an acid (either organic or inorganic) in which the hydrogen atom (H) of at least one acidic hydroxyl group () of that acid is replaced by an organyl group (R). These compounds c ...

are used in many pear- and

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

-flavoured sweets. However, a natural pear-derived product from pear juice concentrate is sometimes used. The largest pear drop in the world is housed at Stockley's Sweets in Oswaldtwistle Mills in Oswaldtwistle,

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

, England. In 2009 a survey of 4,000 adults found that pear drops were the fourteenth most popular sweet in the United Kingdom.

References

British confectionery Candy {{confection-stub