Love licorice? Stocking i Fantasy shoppe with black, red and ice cream liquorice

Too long have licorice connoisseurs suffered in silence, allowing Chocolate Lovers to dominate the candy market. I am pondering opening my own Everything Licorice shop, complete with black and white trim, pink bar stools- maybe red- and live scotty dogs in the window to entice peevish pedestrians inside.

I have one interested investor; a gentleman like myself who indulges in fennel when licorice candy is nowhere to be found.

“What are those bulb things you're slicing?"
"You've never seen fennel? It looks like celery and tastes like licorice.”

Wrote Ken Jennings in Brainiac: Adventures In The Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World Of Trivia Buffs.

Perhaps I could expand my shop to include licorice flavored wines, like Amarone, Barolo or Valpolicella from Italy or Spain's Caranena. One must offer all options in today's world of grossly inflated leasing fees..

Should the competition get a jump on the name Everything Licorice, my second choice is The Big Black Bug . You don't like it? Too disgusting, you say? Well, then how does Queen Bug suit you? Ah yes, only Charles Schultz's Lucy will understand the positive nature of this designation:

Lucy: You know why that big black bug doesn't move? Because she's the queen bug! She just sits there, while the other bugs do all the work.

Charlie Brown: That's not a bug, that's a jelly bean.

Lucy: By golly, you're right, Charlie Brown. I wonder how a jelly bean ever got to be queen?

From Peanuts, Charles Schultz, 1955

Straight ahead from the door, I will line the wall with glass cases containing licorice allsorts, licorice twists, hard licorice buttons, licorice drops, sticks, pastels, and even bar licorice. I will have licorice Scotties and Panda licorice, Haribo and Bassett's Liquorice Allsots, Chuckles, Kludjens German cookies, Li Hing plums, and of course, licorice jelly beans. All black licorice, all sensational, with bright, purplish bags the color of Mountain Licorice clover found in the Alps.

Abrus precatorius, a licorice root substitute, will climb trompe l'oeil walls with clusters of small violet flowers and pods containing bright scarlet seeds tipped with black- real enough to believe. This painting will stretch to the right, where small, round tables hosting four comfortable chairs each, will welcome weary guests to sit awhile and chat.

Servicing this small cafe will be homeopathic experts prescribing licorice root or a Licorice Root Tincture for ulcers and heartburn and other effects of stress, coughs, colds and bronchitis. Yogi Organic Egyptian Licorice Tea will be served as well as Stash Licorice Spice Tea. Connoisseurs like choice.

Continuing right, a gleaming bar tended by a large man with jet black hair and straight white teeth will offer adults Ouzo or Yager, Absinthe, Salmari or the most highly recommended of all, Pastis direct from France, imported by my daughter Cassie, fluent in French and seeking excuses to practice what she will someday teach.

Children will be directed left, towards the wagging dogs in the window and the ice cream bar with its black Black Licorice ice cream ordered direct from The Chocolate Shop in Wisconsin or Polar Bear White Licorice ice cream from Oregon Ice Cream Company. This is where I will hang out, wearing my black incognito mustache and purple apron-just a tad darker than the candy bags.

Consumers will be delighted to discover every variation of this sweet root inside my store. I will even sell salmiakki from Finland, the salted candy Finns adore. And Salmiakkikoskenkorva, a homemade vodka drink containing the pepper candy, Tyrkisk peber.

My grand opening will be dedicated to Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead. I saw him in concert once- 1979 at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver. I did not become a Dead Head.

Still, he is the man who said, "Our audience is like people who like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who do like licorice really like licorice."

He also said, "Fill your life with magic, bliss, power and myth."

To the late Jerry Garcia, I say, "Okay then! This mythical Hub is for you."