Salmiakki

Salmiakki is salty liquorice, flavoured with ammonium chloride, and it is one of the most Finnish tastes there is: sharp, salty and startling to the uninitiated, yet beloved from childhood. It comes as sweets, ice cream, pastilles and even a liqueur, and offering it to a visitor is a small national rite.

What you actually see

• Salty liquorice sweets - the black pastilles and drops in every kiosk.
• Salmiakki ice cream - the sweet made cold and creamy.
• Salmiakki koskenkorva - the liquorice liqueur version.
• The taste test - the classic offering to a wincing first-timer.

When to go

Year-round; it is a shop-shelf staple, so any kiosk delivers a taste test. Start mild before the strongest versions.

Honest expectations

This is a genuinely divisive flavour, and many visitors find the salty, ammoniac taste unpleasant at first, so try a little before buying a bag. The strongest versions are intense even for locals. It makes a memorable, cheap and very Finnish souvenir, for better or worse.

Nearby

Any Helsinki kiosk or market stall sells it; it sits alongside the country's coffee and cinnamon-bun sweetness as the salty opposite.