| Kopalnioki | |
| Alternate Name: | Kopalnik (sing.) |
| Country: | Silesia, Poland |
| Course: | Dessert |
| Served: | Cold |
| Type: | Candy |
| Main Ingredient: | Anise, melissa |
Kopalnioki (English: Liquorice, German: Lakritz Bonbons) is a hard Silesian candy without filling, with a mint-anise taste, common since the end of the nineteenth-century.
The candy are produced from sugar, anise oil, hypericum extract, melissa and mint as well as colouring - carbo medicinalis.[1]
The name of the candy (kopalnioki, a variation of the dialectal Polish word for coal mines, kopalnie or coal miners, kopalnicy) can be explained by the dark colour and coal chunk shape of the sweet. Other explanations state the candy was given to coal miners to protect their throat from coal particles.[2] Coal miners would often take a few pieces for their children and as such popularised the sweet.[3]