barley sugar

American  

noun

1. a brittle, amber-colored, transparent candy, formerly boiled in a decoction of barley, consisting of sugar, cream of tartar, and orange or lemon juice, usually twisted into strips or molded into a variety of shapes.

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barley sugar British  

noun

1. a brittle clear amber-coloured sweet made by boiling sugar, originally with a barley extract

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Etymology

Origin of barley sugar

First recorded in 1705–15

Example Sentences

It would look at home in any microbiology lab, were the bottles not filled with a strong broth of malted barley, sugar and hops.

From Nature • Jul. 25, 2016

The walking sticks, twisted as barley sugar, are again steel rods, except one, with a decorative handle, which has been roughly glued together from short wooden off-cuts, such as you might find under a saw-bench.

From The Guardian • Nov. 25, 2012

And the choirboys had their cassock pockets stuffed with sticks of barley sugar to help them get through the day.

From New York Times • Apr. 24, 2011

I gave him lots of barley sugar and he was getting sack-loads of fan mail.

From The Guardian • Dec. 18, 2010

Cottages in sugar, and temples in barley sugar, pigmy Neptunes in cars of cockle shells trampling over oceans of looking glass or seas of silver tissue. 

From Interludes being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses by Smith, Horace