Willy Wonka Has Nothing On This Over-The-Top Montana Candymaker

HELENA, Mont. — Christmas has already arrived in the area known as Last Chance Gulch — at least in the kitchen of The Parrot Confectionery, a 103-year-old anchor of the city's historic downtown.

Many visitors come in this time of year with a hankering for one of the giant caramel candied apples or perhaps a bowl of the Parrot’s famous chili, but owner and head confectioner Karlee Kleinschmidt has other treats on her mind, like peppermint bark or ribboned hard candy.

Week-by-week, Kleinschmidt and her team tackle one project after another to prepare for the holiday rush.

They package up boxes and boxes of chocolates companies order as gifts or concoct one of several specialty candies. 

Since the 1920s, more than 130 varieties of candies sold at the shop have been handmade onsite. 

Even as time marches on, the Parrot remains a callback to another era. 

Teenagers who carved their names into the booths in the 1940s or 1950s come in now as grandparents to regale younger generations about after-school trips to the soda fountain. 

And with very few exceptions, the candy recipes have stayed the same for more than a century.

What has changed more recently is that after several years as head confectioner, Kleinschmidt bought the storied shop in May. 

“I’d like to keep it going as strong as it is,” Kleinschmidt said. “People love it the way that it is.”

A Recipe For Success

Anyone nostalgic for candy sold at the Parrot during their youth will find it here: various flavors of fondant wafers that melt in your mouth, fudge, brittles, barks, and the century-old caramel recipe that’s made in an as-old giant copper pot.

Mastering all of those varieties and recipes might have been daunting for someone else. 

“I was more excited than anything,” Kleinschmidt said. 

Within a matter of months of joining the Parrot as a candy apprentice in 2018, Kleinschmidt had taken on the seemingly herculean task of being the shop’s sole candymaker.

“I had to learn all of those recipes,” she said. “That was really fun.”

Kid In A Candy Store

Kleinschmidt’s journey to the Parrot began as a kid growing up in Helena, where she has “wonderful memories” of visiting the shop, including a childhood rite of passage of sorts: a tour.

Visitors headed for a tour must resist the temptations of heaps of candies in the counters and the soda fountain before making it back to the kitchen, where a few generations of owners have made candy. 

Highlights of that tour include the temperature- and humidity-controlled dipping room, where a trio of Parrot chocolatiers recently spent an entire day dipping 12 sheet pans of black walnut nougat into dark chocolate and then tempering the confections on a slab of marble. 

There’s also a hand-cranked elevator that employees use to bring up supplies from the basement and a variety of 1920s-era equipment.

Though the Parrot helped Kleinschmidt realize her love for making sweet treats, she never dreamed she’d be making old-school candy on old-school equipment. 

During culinary school in New York, in fact, she had her eye on a more contemporary style of candymaking. 

But she eventually made her way back to Helena — and to the Parrot.

“Knowing the happiness this brings to the community, how could I not keep it going?” she said.

If It Ain’t Broke …

Working in an old building and vintage equipment can be nerve-wracking at times, though Kleinschmidt finds subtle ways to bring a new spin to the classics. 

She resurrected the recipe for Christmastime hard candies from the Parrot’s vault, which required some modifications so she could make them solo rather than with the help of others, as was done in the past. 

And she started making decorative panoramic sugar eggs once again, another recipe that’s been “pretty cool” to return to the shop. 

Throughout the year, Kleinschmidt experiments with new flavors for creams and varieties of barks and brittles. 

In the next month or so, the Parrot’s website will get a much-needed refresh to better accommodate the ever-increasing online orders from around the country. 

Beyond that, however, if it ain’t broke, why fix it? 

“I’ve tried to keep it pretty true to what it is,” Kleinschmidt said.

‘It Speaks For Itself’

Preparing for the holidays at the Parrot requires a lot of coordination, though that’s true much of the year. 

There aren’t really typical days for Kleinschmidt; one day she might make three to four different candies, while the next she’ll work on various stages of double that amount, or focus on all the food and mixers for the soda fountain parlor.

The shop’s supremes — a truffle-like candy — are the most labor-intensive because completing a batch requires work over a three-day period, while the toffee molasses chips are one of the most dangerous candies to make and take over nearly every surface of the kitchen.

With so many plates spinning, some key ingredients inevitably disappear, prompting the staff to joke that the Parrot’s original owners, William and Iantha Post, are still hanging around the shop as ghosts to keep an eye on things and cause mischief. 

The Posts bought a local drug fountain and confectionery and rechristened it The Parrot, reckoning that because they didn’t have a bunch of money for advertising, they’d rely on a catchy slogan that endures to this day: “It talks for itself.”

While people still flock to the shop for the Posts’ original recipes or make do with online orders, Kleinschmidt says that locals deserve as much credit for the Parrot’s success.

“The community has spread the good word about the products here,” she said.