What Do You Do in Suckow?

Yes. It is pronounced Suck-Off. It’s in the Ludwigslust-Parchim district of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.

No. It’s not a naughty word. Giggle, giggle.

It’s the home of the sucking candy on a stick or lollipop.

Indeed. If you listen closely to the 1954 hit Lollipop by the Chordettes, you can hear the backing singers repeatedly harmonizing by singing:

Suckow, Suckow.

Suckow, Suckow, Suckow, Suckow.

Professor Gretel Sprachbungler is credited with inventing the sugary favorite in her kitchen-cum-laboratory on wet Wednesday in 1922.

“It’s such a coincidence that I created this sweet delicacy in a town of the same name,” she said in her autobiography Das Geheimnis des Saugens.

Sprachbungler was not exactly telling the truth because Suckow was only incorporated with that name in 1925, AFTER she had invested the lollipop. But that’s Alzheimer’s for you. True she couldn’t remember the exact sequence of events but she did invent a thoroughly yummy candy.

“The first one was a barley sugar, followed by a peppermint crunch. From there I moved on to chewy stick sweets and much more,” her book relates.

Today the Suckow Museum in the central square is a mecca for all sweet-toothed travelers in Europe. Indeed, in 2015 it rivaled Prague in terms of visitor numbers – at least according to the museum’s English-language website www.goonsuckanotherone.co.de/en  

A (costly) visit includes meeting a hologram of the good professor that answers your questions on…well just try it, and waxworks of Greta in her original home lab.

You can make your own lollipops and other candies, which are yours to take home in a paper bag but we think you’ll suck them off their sticks before you leave the amusement park and beer garden at the rear of the museum.