A large black bowl heaped with Swedish candy skulls, sour fish and foam pieces on a doorstep at dusk, with a carved pumpkin, a small dish of black salmiak licorice with a hand-lettered dare card, and a BUBS bag beside it

Halloween the Swedish Way

September 9, 2026

Sweden did not invent Halloween, and until the 1990s barely observed it, but its candy suits the night. The boldest is salmiak, a black licorice flavored with ammonium chloride that Scandinavians like to hand to the unsuspecting just to watch their faces. The rest of the bowl is skull-shaped foam, sour fish and soft candy clouds, and a bowl of it by the door on the thirty-first gives the neighborhood something to talk about.

The Saturday candy tradition, and why the gummies chew the way they do, are covered in the Swedish candy guide.

The skulls

The skull, skalle, sits alongside the fish among the familiar shapes of Swedish candy. BUBS, the candy maker founded in 1992 in Huskvarna, Sweden, is known for its skull shapes. Its sour skulls, Skalle Sour (shop BUBS Skalle Sour), come in ninety-gram bags. For a bigger bowl, the So Sweet skulls mix (shop So Sweet Skulls Mix) and the Stock Boy BUBS mix (shop Stock Boy BUBS Mix) are half-pound bags of mixed Swedish candy.

The sour fish and the clouds

BonBon's fish fill the other half of the bowl: sour blackberry (shop BonBon Sour Blackberry Fish) for the color, sweet wild strawberry (shop BonBon Sweet Wild Strawberry Fish) for the children who want red, and sour elderflower (shop BonBon Sour Elderflower Fish) for the adults who will steal from the bowl after nine. For something softer, BonBon's Moomin candy clouds (shop BonBon Moomin Candy Clouds), strawberry and blueberry foam, add pastel to the dark bowl. The So Sweet sour mix (shop So Sweet Sour Mix) covers the rest in one bag.

The dare

Every Swedish bowl needs a corner of salmiak, the black licorice flavored with ammonium chloride that is popular across the Nordic countries and the Netherlands and famous for surprising first-timers. Put it in a separate small black dish with a card that says only "Dare," and watch teenagers earn their reputations. Why it tastes the way it does is the subject of the licorice guide.

The party mix for twelve

For a Halloween party after the children are in bed, the bowl becomes a mix, and the Swedish candy guide sets the rule of thumb at four categories: sour, sweet, licorice and something chocolate-coated. For twelve adults, the sour is one bag of sour skulls plus a bag each of the blackberry and elderflower fish. The sweet is a bag of candy clouds and a bag of BUBS Goody Ovals in banana and toffee (shop BUBS Goody Ovals). The licorice is a small dish of salmiak. The chocolate, for the grown-ups, is Lakrids by Bülow's passion fruit licorice (shop Lakrids by Bülow Passion Fruit), coated in white chocolate and a crunchy sugar shell. Pour everything except the salmiak and the Lakrids into one large bowl, give those two their own dishes, and put out a stack of small paper bags so people can build a Swedish Saturday bag to take home.

Serving it at the door

One big bowl, black or white, so the colors read. Keep a second bowl inside for refills, sealed until it is needed.

Products ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com (shop Swedish candy). The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and visitors can ask staff questions in the shop.