Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.

Sugar, water and corn syrup. That’s all it takes to make Hercules Candy Company’s famous ribbon candy — or one of their viral TikTok videos.

“Candy making is relatively very simple,” said Craig Andrianos, social media manager and son of Hercules Candy’s owners. “It’s not really any secret ingredients or anything, just sugar, water, corn syrup, and you can find that recipe if you go to Google. So we’re like, ‘We might as well give the recipe away ourselves.’”

Hercules Candy in East Syracuse has been passed down through the Andrianos family since around 1910. Millions of viewers on social media watch as candymakers hand craft sweets like ribbon candy, chocolate-covered creams, sour candies and more.

Halloween, the hallmark candy holiday, is coming up, but compared to Christmas, it’s “no big deal” to Terry Andrianos, co-owner of Hercules Candy.

Hercules Candy is busy all year round — in fact, their viral candy videos have made them so busy that Craig isn’t posting the family’s usual Halloween “Helga the Witch” sketch this year. Craig said Terry is still playing catch up from a recent surge of views, so the business can’t accommodate any extra orders that more videos would bring in.

Terry and Steven Andrianos purchased their current storefront about eight years ago. The family had been running their candy business out of the basement of their home since 1931. But things changed when Craig posted a video of Hercules Candy’s signature ribbon candy on YouTube. His family’s sarcastic humor drew people in.

Now, people with sweet tooths visit from across the country to try items they’ve seen on Hercules Candy’s accounts. In the back of the shop, a map of the United States tracks customers’ hometowns with colorful pushpins. Customers from TikTok usually ask for blue raspberry creams, because videos of the candies have gained traction on the platform, employee Kaitlyn Wilson said.

Hercules Candy is known for its creams, with flavors like cookie and blue raspberry. The candies are handmade at the restaurant’s East Syracuse location. Ike Wood | Asst. Photo Editor

Three YouTube play buttons hang above the door of the candy workshop, marking each landmark in the channel’s growth. The most recent celebrates the Hercules Candy channel’s 1 million subscribers they achieved earlier this year. Their virality has caused online sales to jump from 10% to 70% of Hercules Candy’s total sales, Terry said, even bringing in some international customers. Recently, TikTok virality expanded sales even more, with 1 million followers and nearly 50 million likes.

“I remember the first summer that I worked here, it kind of slowed down,” Wilson said. “And then this last summer, it did not have a lull at all because of all of the online business.”

Syracuse locals who’ve been buying from the business for decades aren’t quite used to the high demand, Terry said; they tend to be disappointed when classics are sold out. The store tries their best to fill demand, but with only four candymakers, it’s just a fact of the business, she said.

Hercules Candy stumbled into social media fame after Craig was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that left him in a wheelchair. Hoping to avoid being on medication for life, he switched to a plant-based diet and his disease went into remission, Terry said.

In 2013, Craig started his YouTube channel, No Egg Craig, to share vegan content, but wasn’t getting much traction because his content was similar to what other vegan YouTubers were at the time, Craig said. He wanted to do something to stand out.

Craig hadn’t seen another YouTube channel posting about ribbon candy — a vegan sweet treat. So, in 2015, he decided to begin posting videos of his family making candy. The original video did well, sitting at a couple hundred views.

But after a few months, it “hit the algorithm just right,” Craig said. Now, the original video has 846k views. Viewers started asking for the next candy-making video. Then, Craig decided to make Hercules Candy its own channel so people wouldn’t mistake all of Hercules’ candy for being vegan.

Since gaining traction on social media, online sales jumped from 10 percent to 70 percent of Hercules Candy’s total sales. Ike Wood | Asst. Photo Editor

Though viewers loved the candy-making content, Craig found it mundane. Having a 600-pound marble slab in his basement for his parents to make candy from scratch was normal for him.

“That’s the only thing that I knew,” Craig said. “My friends thought it was cool, but I didn’t think that random strangers on the internet would think it was cool. I didn’t know there was a niche that needed to be filled.”

Without their online success, Terry said their business would probably still be in their basement struggling. Before going viral, she had told her three kids that they wouldn’t be taking over the business as their career because it was too hard and not very profitable. Now she’s training her daughter to take over the administrative side of the company.

Making content for Hercules Candy is Craig’s full-time job now. He hired Scott Stratton to help with social media four years ago.

There are a few other content creators who also post similar candy-related videos, like Rocks & Rolls, Logan’s Candies and Sticky, but each channel’s content is distinguished by the differences in recipes passed down through generations, Stratton said.

Earlier this month, Craig flew to Australia to visit Logan’s Candies, another store that makes classic ribbon candy. The candymakers taught each other their own way of bending ribbon candy, and created a collaboration video.

People love the “satisfying” candy videos, Stratton said. He said consistency also contributes to the videos’ success — he usually posts at least once a day.

Kaitlyn Wilson has worked at Hercules Candy for two years. She said she already feels like part of the family. Ike Wood | Asst. Photo Editor

Craig said viewers initially click on Hercules Candy videos for the satisfying content, but stay for the family banter and personalities. Craig tries to show the whole process in every video and anticipate what questions viewers might have for candymakers, knowing that each video might be someone’s first time on the channel.

“In the beginning, I was actually scared to edit it just because I know that (viewers) said they loved feeling like they were just hanging out with us,” Craig said. “I wasn’t sure if adding too many edits in there would take away from that feeling. And it didn’t.”

That “hanging out” feeling isn’t just for the videos; it’s really what it feels like to be at the candy shop. When Stratton was hired at Hercules Candy, he had no experience with the social media industry. He said it was overwhelming to learn the ins and outs of the candy-making process without getting in people’s way.

But now he’s able to replicate some of the recipes at home for parties. Over four years, Hercules Candy has started to feel like a family, he said.

Craig called Hercules the best working environment he’s ever experienced. He said employees often stay at work to chat even after they clock out, and the environment during the day is fun. It sometimes makes it challenging for Craig to create calm content for Hercules Candy’s ASMR channel.

A map at the back of Hercules Candy tracks customers’ hometowns with colorful pushpins. After going viral, the shop has attracted sales from all over the country, and even internationally. Ike Wood | Asst. Photo Editor

“Those are actually some of the hardest videos to shoot,” Craig said. “They’re so simple, but it’s just so hard to get everyone to stop talking for a couple minutes. Often when I’m shooting them, I’ll still hear people giggling and laughing in the background.”

The Hercules Candy motto, “Candy makes people happy,” is really true, Terry said. Throughout the day, people have to run a lot of mundane errands, but when they come to a candy store, they’re coming for a happy reason. Terry said she doesn’t have to hard sell customers anything — they already know what they want.

Terry said Hercules Candy keeps the content wholesome and family friendly, without politics or drama. She wants people to sit back, forget about their troubles and watch the Hercules team make candy, she said.

“People say they listened to us to go to sleep, or that we helped with their depression, or they watched while they were in the hospital recovering from cancer or surgery or chemo,” Terry said. “There’s all kinds of things that we never anticipated, that we’re just helping people by being ourselves.”

Published on October 30, 2025 at 12:22 am
Contact Charlotte: cprice04@syr.edu