Shipping Black Hills Candy for the Holidays

The last week of October is when the Hills go quiet. The tour buses stop coming through Keystone, the aspens have mostly let go, and our Winter Street shop closes up for the winter the way it has every year since we opened. Hill City stays. That shop at 205 Main Street is open through the snow, and from November until spring it is the only counter we have.

Which means that for most of the people who found us this summer, the next box of fudge is going to arrive in the mail. We have been shipping candy out of the Black Hills for a long time, and this is the time of year we start thinking about it hard. Here is what we have learned about getting it to your door in one piece.

What travels well

Winter is the easy season for mailing chocolate. In July we watch the forecast and sometimes hold an order until Monday so it is not sitting in a truck over a weekend. From November on, the cold does the work for us. Nearly everything on the shelf ships well once the weather turns.

Fudge is the best traveler we have. It is cut thick, wrapped, and it stays soft for a good while — a loaf that leaves here on Monday is still cutting cleanly the following week. Chocolate, penuche, maple, caramel pecan, and whatever else the kitchen has going that day.

English toffee is the other one we never worry about. It is hard, it is dry, and it keeps for weeks in a tin without losing its snap. Caramels and sea salt caramels do fine. Bear paws travel well once it is cold, and so do the truffles, though truffles are the one thing we would tell you to eat first rather than set aside until Christmas morning.

Taffy is forgiving and travels about as well as anything we make. Ice cream, malts, and the specialty sundaes do not travel at all. Those you have to come get, and in the winter that means Hill City.

The one that gets opened first

If you are mailing something to someone who has never been out here, send them the mountain. We pour a solid one-pound Mount Rushmore in milk chocolate, four faces and all, and it is usually $35. There is a dark chocolate version and a white chocolate one too.

It is a solid block of chocolate, so it holds up to the mail better than most novelty things do, and it is the box that gets opened first at the family table. Nobody wants to cut into it. Eventually somebody does.

When to order

Everything goes out USPS Priority Mail, which usually puts a box on a doorstep about three days after it leaves us. We generally need a day or two on our end to make and pack it, and December is the month that gets tight.

The Postal Service is recommending December 18 as the Priority Mail send-by date for deliveries in the lower 48 before Christmas. You can see their full list of dates for the other services. Our own advice is simpler: order by the second week of December and stop thinking about it. Candy made in a small kitchen the week before Christmas is candy made in a small kitchen the week before Christmas, and we would rather pour yours without the clock running.

• Orders over $50 ship free anywhere in the U.S.
• We do not ship outside the country.
• Shipping a few boxes to a few different addresses is normal this time of year — call the Hill City shop and we will sort it out with you.

The online store is open all winter, and the shipping details are there if you want the specifics.

If you are in the Hills this winter

Come to 205 Main Street in Hill City. It is the shop that does not close. We put gift boxes together at the counter in December, which is a better way to do it than guessing from a website, and the coffee bar is running — Hill City in January rewards anyone holding something hot.

Hours shift with the season and the weather, so call ahead at (605) 787-2925 if you are making a special trip. Most days in winter we are there well before the Mickelson Trail parking lot has anybody in it.

We have been making candy by hand, in small batches, since 1977. The part we like best is still a box going out the door with somebody’s name on it.