Hot Tamales: The Complete UK Guide to America's Cinnamon Candy

Walk into an American cinema, convenience store or sweet shop and Hot Tamales will be on the counter. They sit beside Mike and Ike in the same theatre box, made by the same company, invented by the same family, ten years apart, at the same Pennsylvania factory. And they taste nothing alike, which is entirely the point.

Hot Tamales are not fruit candy. They are cinnamon candy, and cinnamon candy in the American tradition means something specific: a warm, persistent heat that builds as you eat, an intensity that keeps pulling you back, and a flavour profile with no mainstream British equivalent at all.

The Just Born Family

Sam Born arrived in the United States from Russia in 1910, already trained as a chocolatier. What made his name was not a recipe but a machine: the Born Sucker Machine, which mechanically inserted sticks into lollipops. San Francisco gave him the key to the city for it in 1916, which is an unusual civic honour for a piece of confectionery engineering.

He founded the company in Brooklyn in 1923, making fresh candy daily and putting a sign in the window reading Just Born whenever a new batch was ready. That sign became the company name and the early logo was a baby sitting in a candy scale. His brothers-in-law Irv and Jack Shaffer joined shortly after, and in 1932, in the depths of the Depression, the operation moved to an empty printing factory in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, chosen for its rail links. It is still there.

Born kept inventing. He developed chocolate sprinkles and the hard shell that sets on an ice cream bar. According to Just Born, the sprinkles got their American name from the man who ran the machine that made them, James Bartholomew, which is why Americans call them jimmies to this day.

Mike and Ike launched in 1940. Sam's son Bob joined the company after serving on a destroyer in the US Navy during the Second World War, and in 1950 he took the Mike and Ike format and swapped fruit for cinnamon. Hot Tamales were the result. Bob went on to mechanise Peeps production, cutting it from twenty-seven hours a batch to six minutes, and was known for the rest of his life as the father of Peeps. He died in 2023, aged ninety-eight.

Why Cinnamon Feels Hot

The heat in Hot Tamales is not chilli heat, and the difference is in the chemistry rather than just the strength. Chilli heat comes from capsaicin, which switches on TRPV1, the receptor in your mouth that normally detects scalding temperatures — your body is registering a burn that is not actually happening. Cinnamon heat comes from cinnamaldehyde, the compound in the inner bark of cinnamon trees, and it works on a different receptor, TRPA1 — the same one that reacts to wasabi and mustard.

That difference shapes how the sweet behaves. Cinnamon heat is a warm, tingling sensation rather than the lingering burn of chilli, and it tends to fade faster between pieces, so it builds pleasantly rather than piling up. It is why you can work through a box of Hot Tamales in a way you cannot with a very hot chilli crisp. Just Born pitches the original at a steady warmth rather than a burn, which is a deliberate choice and the reason the box empties.

What Is a Hot Tamale?

A tamale is a Mesoamerican dish of corn dough wrapped and steamed, filled with meat, cheese or peppers. By 1950, when Bob Born named the sweet, hot tamale had also become American slang for something exciting, impressive or full of personality — the sort of phrase that turns up in songs and film dialogue of the period.

The name works on both meanings at once: the heat of the actual dish and the swagger of the slang. There is no tamale in the sweet and never was. It is pure cinnamon confection borrowing an association, and the name has lasted because it describes the experience accurately — something small, red and unexpectedly hot.

Hot Tamales in American Culture

The cultural footprint is wider than the product suggests. In the B-52s single Song for a Future Generation, released in 1983, the late Ricky Wilson introduces himself with 'I love computers and hot tamales'. The name has turned up in American songs, films and slang for decades, which keeps the brand familiar well beyond the cinema counter.

Just Born leaned into the association directly. By the early 1960s the boxes carried a mascot, the Hot Tamales Kid, and a 1971 mail-away offer turned him into a plush toy advertised in magazines of the era. In 2002 the brand went into motorsport, sponsoring the No. 12 Hot Tamales car driven by Kerry Earnhardt in the NASCAR Busch Series. By 1999 it was the best-selling cinnamon candy in the United States, and Just Born still describes it as America's number one cinnamon candy.

Tropical Heat and the Swicy Trend

The newest development for the brand runs straight into the swicy trend, the sweet-and-spicy movement that has taken over American snacking. Hot Tamales Tropical Heat drops the cinnamon for three fruit-and-chilli combinations: Fiery Lime, Mango Chili and Pineapple Picante, each pairing a tropical fruit with a genuine chilli kick.

It is a bigger move than a flavour extension, because it brings chilli heat into a brand built on cinnamon — capsaicin rather than cinnamaldehyde, a different receptor and a different kind of burn — making it a genuinely different sensation under the same brand. Check the Hot Tamales brand page for current availability. For the wider trend, see the swicy trend guide.

The Range at Sweet and Glory

The Theatre Box at 120g is the classic — the red box that has sat on American cinema counters for decades, and the strongest impulse and gift format. The Peg Bag at 141g is the hook-display size and the better value for anyone who already knows they like them. The Changemaker at 22g covers counter-top impulse at the lowest price point.

There is also a 2.27kg bag for scoop bins, concessions and pick and mix. The Tropical Heat theatre box sits alongside them for the sweet-and-spicy customer, and a Valentine's theatre box suits the season better than most American lines do, given the sweets are already small and red. Availability on the larger and seasonal formats moves around, so check the Hot Tamales brand page for what is in.

Who Buys Hot Tamales

The cinnamon audience is genuinely underserved in Britain. Cinnamon appears in baked goods and at Christmas but there is almost no mainstream British cinnamon sweet, so customers who like the flavour have almost nowhere to go. That is an unusual position for an import to be in — not competing for shelf space in a crowded category but occupying an empty one.

The swicy trend helps without defining it. Hot Tamales are spicy candy with a track record going back to 1950 rather than a novelty riding a moment, which means they keep selling after the trend moves on. That combination — established brand, current relevance — is rarer than it sounds.

For display, the theatre box stacked alongside Tootsie Roll, Milk Duds and Mike and Ike builds the American cinema concession block, which tells a story a shelf of loose bars cannot. See the American candy section setup guide and sweets and snacks from movies and TV.

Browse Hot Tamales Wholesale in the UK

The Hot Tamales range is available wholesale at Sweet and Glory. Browse the Hot Tamales brand page for current availability, or the full candy range.

No minimum order. Free first parcel on orders over £150 ex VAT (additional boxes £7.10 each). Free pallet delivery over £650 ex VAT. Dispatched from Manchester. Create a free account to browse and order.
 

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Hot Tamales spicy or hot? Hot, but not in the chilli sense. The heat comes from cinnamaldehyde, the compound in cinnamon bark, which works on a different receptor from the capsaicin in chillies — the same one wasabi and mustard use. The result is a warm tingle that builds steadily rather than a lingering burn, which is why a whole box disappears in a way a bag of chilli crisps does not.

Do Hot Tamales actually contain tamales? No, and they never have. A tamale is a Mesoamerican dish of steamed corn dough with a filling. The sweet is pure cinnamon confection, and the name borrows two things at once: the heat associated with the dish, and 1950s American slang in which a hot tamale meant something exciting or full of personality.

Who makes Hot Tamales? Just Born, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania — the same family firm behind Mike and Ike and Peeps. Bob Born created Hot Tamales in 1950 by taking the Mike and Ike format and swapping fruit flavour for cinnamon. He also mechanised Peeps production, cutting a batch from twenty-seven hours to six minutes, and was known afterwards as the father of Peeps.

What is the difference between Hot Tamales and Mike and Ike? The flavour principle, and nothing else. Same oblong chewy format, same size, same factory, same family — Mike and Ike arrived in 1940 with fruit flavours, Hot Tamales in 1950 with cinnamon. They are siblings in the literal sense, which is why they work so well displayed together: fruit and heat, from one story.

What is Hot Tamales Tropical Heat? A newer line built around the sweet-and-spicy trend, replacing the cinnamon with three fruit-and-chilli combinations: Fiery Lime, Mango Chili and Pineapple Picante. It is a bigger change than it looks, because chilli heat works on a different receptor from the one cinnamon uses, so it is a genuinely different sensation under the same brand. Check the brand page for current availability.

Related guides: Mike and Ike complete UK guide · Tootsie Roll complete UK guide · Laffy Taffy complete UK guide · Milk Duds complete guide · Swicy: sweet and spicy trend guide · American candy section setup guide · Most popular American sweets UK

Sources

Just Born, Our story: justborn.com/who-we-are/our-story
Hot Tamales, Tropical Heat: hottamales.com/products/tropical-heat
Bandell et al., Noxious cold ion channel TRPA1 is activated by pungent compounds and bradykinin, Neuron (2004): pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15046718
CollectingCandy.com, Hot Tamales through the decades: collectingcandy.com
The Auto Channel, Hot Tamales teams with FitzBradshaw Racing (2003): theautochannel.com/news/2003/02/04/154241.html
Songfacts, Song for a Future Generation lyrics: songfacts.com

Written by Sharon Wilson, Sweet and Glory. Sweet and Glory has imported American and world confectionery into the UK from Trafford Park, Manchester, since 2015.