A Lexington candy shop is celebrating a half-century of ‘fabulous’ family-made sweets

Somewhere in Lexington, a gingerbread house sits festooned with candy canes, lollipops and anything else Hansel and Gretel could ever want.

Inside, there’s even a cauldron, bubbling away. But instead of newt’s eyes and frog toes, it’s golden brown caramel wafting the scent of butters and sugar. And instead of a witch, there’s Rob Sharp, the dapper, almost 60-year-old owner of Sharp’s Candy, who’s getting to work in the kitchen right behind the candy showroom.

Like everything at Sharp’s Candies, the caramel is a family recipe tucked safely in Rob Sharp’s memory: caramel, sugar, butter, milk and whipping cream. It’s melted in a 50-gallon copper cauldron from the early 1900s, lit by a gas flame and a powered paddle that turns the caramel until it’s velvet.

That’s when Sharp tests it with the method beloved of home cooks everywhere: He sticks a spoon into the mass, drops the spoonful into a bowl of cold water to see if it turns into a ball, and is therefore ready to go.

“That’s it,” he says, and soon begins siphoning caramel in small circles onto a big tray of toasted pecans.

He’s making one of Sharp’s most popular candies, what most of us would call “turtles,” but what Sharp’s designated as “saddles,” as a nod to Kentucky.

He then loads the tray in the freezer so the caramel won’t get too sticky before it’s covered in chocolate. In about 20 minutes, he unloads the tray and takes it into the side room where his wife, Lisa, starts breaking them apart to put them on an assembly line machine that coats each one in chocolate.

“I like to watch craftsmen work, and I like the craft of this,” said Rob Sharp, who took over the business from his parents in 1991. “We make everything by hand. Nothing is mass produced.”

Half a century of candy

This year, Sharp’s is celebrating its 50th anniversary by making candy exactly as they have since 1973. As we get more immersed in fast food, fast fashion and “advanced manufacturing,” where most things from off an Amazon truck via China, it’s fascinating to see a local business fixed in time.

As we get farther and farther away from the land, immersed in fast food and fast fashion, it is a fascinating thing to watch anything get made by hand. We talk a lot about small batches in bourbon, but this is candy.

If you want care put into the products you buy, just watch Lisa Sharp hold one potato chip at a time under a chocolate stream so that each chip in a box of chocolate-covered potato chips lives up to the description.

“We make everything by hand, and always have, and always will,” Sharp said.

His parents, Bob and Becky Sharp, opened the first Sharp’s in 1973 on Harrodsburg Road. They had learned the candy making business from Becky Sharp’s parents in Evansville, Indiana, but soon realized the town wasn’t big enough for two candy-making families.

Lexington wasn’t too far away, Becky Sharp said, so they rounded up a bunch of candy-making equipment, packed up their three kids and headed south.

In 1979, Sharp’s Candies moved to a small ranch house on Regency Drive. They renovated it into a long showroom, with kitchens and prep space in the back.

There was a learning curve on Kentucky-specific candies, like bourbon balls and Kentucky pulled cream candy. They also started roasting their own nuts, and soon, bags of pecans and cashews, became a top seller.

All three kids worked in the store, but the oldest, Rob, liked it the most.

“He was the one who showed the most interest,” his mom said. “So they bought the business.”

Lisa was a nurse, but a few years in, she got the call to help out. Now she’s full time in the store as well.

Rob wanted to make his mark by turning the store into a destination. Fifty percent of their business happens in December, with Valentine’s Day and Easter after that.

“We wanted it to say, that’s a candy shop, but how can I create a candy shop that doesn’t look too much like Christmas?” he said.

So with brown stucco, carved and painted lollipops, and a giant candy cane as a sign holder, the new Sharp’s emerged.

Rob has made his mark in other ways. He’s probably most proud of his bourbon truffle. He tried dozens of bourbons for bourbon chocolate ganache interior, but settled on Woodford Reserve.

“Woodford is the most stable, it has the best flavor and it cooks the most consistently,” he said. “Some of them with high fire content would actually burn through the chocolate.”

Now those truffles, along with the saddles and mixed caramels, are their top sellers.

‘Fabulous’ candy

There may not be another 50 years of Sharp’s. At least not with the same owners’ bloodlines.

Rob and Lisa’s two kids have chosen other careers. Rob, an avid boater, is looking at retirement someday before too long.

“It’s a little sad, but I don’t want to force them into a career they don’t want,” Rob said.

Terri Koontz stopped by the store on a cold, sunny day. She remembers the first Sharp’s on Harrodsburg.

“I’ve been a customer here for 50 years,” she said. “I’m probably here two to three times a month.”

The lure is Sharp’s English toffee and dark chocolate. Oh, and the cashews.

“They make fabulous candy all this time,” she said.

Sharp’s depends on customers like Koontz, and the many corporate gifts that business people send during the holidays. But in trying to stay current, Sharp’s online business is bustling, too.

“Walk-in customers are our bread and butter,” Rob Sharp said. “There’s only one location, and it’s an iconic one.”

Central Kentucky is a treasure trove of historic candy businesses