Buy This Now!: Classic candy at Grandma Daisy's

If the stormy weather has you feeling like a puppy trapped inside the house while the humans are away, perhaps it's time for a jailbreak to Grandma Daisy's Candy & Ice Cream Parlor in Boulder City. The shop has hand-dipped caramel apples, fresh-made fudge and a variety of nostalgic and modern candies sure to delight your inner Charlie Bucket, Veruca Salt, Mike Teavee or Augustus Gloop (a la Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).

But if you fancy yourself more of a (blueberry juice-free) Violet Beauregarde, the store is just the place to pick up some delightful old-time faves, including Teaberry, Blackjack, Beemans and (violet-scented) C. Howard's gums. Mercury staff tasters agreed the store's crowning glory is its selection of novelty "cigarettes" in bubble gum (complete with that un-PC puff of sugar "smoke"), chocolate and candy flavors. One caveat: if you're a former smoker, these sweet cigs may cause you to pine for a pack of the real thing.

Of course, the candy cigarettes are no longer marketed as cigarettes--the gum version is labeled bubble gum and the others are labeled in the same vein. However, the bubble gum version, with its Bazooka Joe-esque classic pink gum center, is wrapped in a piece of paper that is the spitting image of a cigarette paper complete with tan filter end. The packaging still bears the same images it has for decades: stallions, cowboys, victory torches and other innocent kitsch.

Grandma Daisy's is located at 501A Hotel Plaza in Boulder City and online at www.grandmadaisys.com.

--Emmily Bristol