Dulcis Candy

“We were on the boat from Tobago and we started thinking about what Trinis like and we came up with the idea of making alcoholic candy like hard candy, cocktail jells, truffles and fudge because many people like alcohol and sweets,” said James in an interview with Newsday.

The company came into existence in January 2017 and offers a variety of alcoholic signature products which includes boozemellows — which has the consistency of marshmallows in flavored vodkas and any juicy liqueurs like mango liqueur, berry vodka and apple vodka. They also offer tequila sunrise cocktail jells, strawberry swirl vodka cocktail jells and white rum cocktail jells. Their fudge and truffles comes in: Bailey’s flavored, coconut rum, cappuccino liqueur, coffee, Hennessy and caramel flavored.

“Any cocktail you can order at a bar, we can make it in a cocktail jell. We make all our candy by hand in Cascade. It takes us approximately two hours to create any selection of candy. In the kitchen, it was similar to doing labs, having to keep record of what worked and what didn’t work and continuously trying again till we got the desired taste and consistency,” said Clarke.

Their first event was Oneness The Party which was held in Queen’s Hall carpark on February 19 by St Ann’s RC Church.

“We did the welcome treats for all the patrons. We had Bailey’s chocolate truffles and Kahlua coffee liqueur filled chocolate truffles, tequila sunrise cocktail jells and strawberry swirl vodka cocktail jells which the patrons loved,” said James. They have also been to UpMarket, as they continue to build their clientele.

What is the meaning behind the name Dulcis? “Dulcis is Latin for ‘sweet’ we wanted the name in another language because it has an elegant sound to it. It’s all about branding and we want our candy to leave an impression of high quality on customers, as we infuse the best liqueur and rum into our candies,” said James.

Clarke attended Bishop’s High School Tobago she then went to Trinidad to pursue her bachelors of applied science in process engineering and went on to do her masters in the same field. However, she would be moving back to Tobago soon. While James attended St Joseph Convent Port of Spain and then went on to study communication studies with a minor in international relations at the University of the West Indies. James is a Communications Officer and is also focused on building the brand DCC.

Asked how they plan to move forward with DCC as Clarke would be moving back home to Tobago Clarke said, “We both know how to create the candy, so in the instance of receiving large orders we would decide if I would come Trinidad or Kadija would come to Tobago where we can work together to create the products.”

Financially, these two young women solely support their entrepreneurial venture by allocating portions of their salary into DCC. “We would like to primarily continue making welcome treats for events but we would like alcoholic brands to join with us, so that people would taste their alcohol in a new form like a cocktail jell or boozemellow because Trinis like free things and new things,” said James.

“We also plan on introducing sugarless candy for our health conscious customers and alcohol infused berry chocolates. Any type of candy can also be made non-alcoholic once requested by a client,” added Clarke.

Asked by what advice they would give to young entrepreneurs, Clarke responded, “If you think you have a good idea stick with it. You are going to have setbacks and challenges but push yourself through, learn from it and move forward.”

Dulcis Candy Company can be contacted via:

Instagram: @dcandycompany

Facebook: Dulcis Candy Company

Email: dulcistt@gmail.com